At the time of writing this (July 2022), inflation’s going a bit crazy all around the world. The cost of basics and necessities are through the roof, meaning that it’s a lot harder to make ends meet, let alone have a bit extra at the end of the paycheck to spoil yourself.
If you’re trying to future-proof your career and protect your (future) family, a career in tech can provide those growth opportunities. You might not be an engineer, developer or coder, but if you know how to use tech and are good at simplifying the complex, a career as a Customer Success Manager might be a good fit for you.
Straight to business: how much can you earn as a customer success manager, exactly? What if I told you that it was entirely possible to be earning $60K straight away in your first CSM role? For the record, I’m talking about $60,000 USD here. Equivalent is about £50,000 GBP, €60,000 EUR and about $80-85,000 AUD.
For those of you who are sick of earning at or below minimum wage, getting abuse hurled at everyday and feeling stuck, this could be your ticket out. I don’t want to hype things up; there are quite a few factors involved but there are job listings offering this salary range off the bat. So let me talk a bit more about how you can give yourself the best possible chance of getting in at this range.
Product type
You want to look for companies that offer a Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS for short. These are going to be the majority of the tech companies that have customer success roles. Generally, these companies are solving complex problems that often have digital solutions that benefit from having a human on the other side helping their customers get the most value out of it.
What SaaS companies also do is sell subscriptions, which tends to help with their financial strength. Assuming the product effectively solves the problem, the missing piece is having them pay this subscription to keep access to the SaaS product, which is where you come in as a CSM.
Company size
The great thing here is that there are tech companies popping up all the time. The big ones that you see everywhere, and possibly use the solutions for, might have customer success managers who you’ve interacted with in the past.
As someone looking for their first role in Customer Success, I wouldn’t be too picky. Getting in on the ground floor of a smaller company might be a risk, especially if that company hasn’t achieved product-market fit, but if this economy has shown anything, it’s that even the larger companies with hundreds, if not thousands of employees, can suddenly let go of many of them at the drop of a hat.
Location
Perhaps most exciting here is the location. Again, there are SaaS tech companies popping up everywhere, so it’s likely that you’ll be able to find a company that’s hiring in your area.
Furthermore, with Coronavirus doing what it did throughout 2020 and beyond, there are of course now expectations that companies are flexible. Candidates like yourself have bargaining power to ask for flexible working conditions. If you’re working in a US state like Colorado, which is Mountain Time, you might find yourself working remotely for a tech company based out of New York, which is Eastern Daylight Time. This can be a great match for those who wake up early and finish early.
All in all, it’s entirely possible for you to earn $60K USD in your first year as a customer success manager. Look at what’s available and consider what you want out of your career in tech. Once you’ve found a job that you like, use my resources, which I’m slowly building out to give you a boost in your job hunt. Good luck!