Stacey Yudin - CEO of NEP Services - Talking to Cool People w/ Jason Frazell

Episode Transcript
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Jason Frazell (2) (00:11):
Hey everybody.
My guest today is Stacy Den.
Stacy is the CEO of NEPservices.
We're gonna talk about what thatmeans in terms of what she does.
We're gonna get into Stacy's alittle bit about her background,
her philosophy.
I've had a chance to catch upwith Stacy before we kicked off,
and I can't wait for thisconversation.
It's gonna be awesome.
Stacy, thanks for being on.

Stacey Yudin (00:30):
Thank you for having me.
I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker (00:32):
Yes.
Excellent.
Stacy, where are you in theworld today?

Oh, I'm calling in videoing in from beautiful
Laguna Beach, California.
The weather is gorgeous.
The ocean is sparkling on thecoast.
No complaints.

Speaker (00:47):
You're talking.
Yeah, I think mentioned, I'm in,I'm in New York.
It's warm here today, but it'sgetting cold and Laguna Beach
sounds very nice right now.

Yeah, you know, the water is incredibly cold,
but for all of those health nutsout there, I do go to hot yoga
and then I try to jump in thefreezing cold ocean as my, my
cold dip, which I, there you go.
Recommend to anyone who's braveenough to try.

Speaker (01:09):
I like a good cold plunge as well.
That's great.
I'm gonna say thisconversation's starting off very
California.
You're like, I go to hot yogaand then I do my cold plunge in
the ocean, and then I do somepodcasts.
It's so good.
I love it.
That's awesome.
It's part

of a balanced, part of a balanced work life.
Absolutely.
Gotta have it.
It's, it's, it's a marathon, nota race.
I've learned that the hard way.

Speaker (01:27):
Yeah.
Well, Stacey, let's actuallykick the conversation off of
that.
You, like I mentioned, you werethe CEO of a software company.
You're a female in tech, afemale in tech leadership.
It's amazing in and of itself.
There's obviously, it's not,that is not an equal playing
field, even though, even stilltoday.
So let's actually kick off bytalking about how you take care

(01:48):
of yourself to do that reallyimportant job so that you can
take care of, you said you'remarried and you have a team of
folks that you work for, andthen you service them through
the, through the software andservices that you provide.
So how do you think about takingcare of yourself so that you can
be your best self and, and doyour job?

Yeah, well, I mean, no one is, no one's
perfect at that.
And obviously being a, being inthe executive leadership role as
myself and my colleagues know,you know, there's times of the
year where taking care ofyourself is just not possible.
It's, it put, it's put on theback burner.
So my philosophy is for theentire team and I, I do try to
remind the team, we're gonnahave the busy months, we're
gonna have the excuse my Frenchkick ass quarters.

(02:27):
Yeah.
Where it's.
We need to focus.
We have deadlines, we havedeliverables, and there'll be
time, time in the season wherewe can get back to balance and
focus.
So, you know, I encourageeveryone in our company we're,
we're fully remote work, which Ithink despite some collaborative
drawbacks, offers an opportunityfor people to not spend their

(02:48):
time in the car.
30 minutes getting to my office.
To meet with me face to face.
Instead, they can spend 30minutes taking a walk outside,
taking a break.
You know, I encourage people onsort of non, you know, less
important internal phone callsthat if they need to take those
calls while walking around theblock, you know, using their
headset technology has enabledus to work more efficiently and

(03:10):
also to work remotely.
So.
As long as it's you know,they're producing and we can
measure ROI, which our team isincredible at NEP.
We've done a lot with a verysmall team, a very nimble
environment.
I think remote work allows youto take opportunities for
yourself and rebalance.
Like I said, there's gonna betimes where it's pedal to the
metal and self-care is not apriority.

(03:32):
It's the last thing on the list.
But remote work's allowed us to,you know, get up a little
earlier, carve out that extrahalf an hour you know, go jump
in the ocean and then race backfor your, you know, your, your
podcast.

Speaker (03:44):
Yeah.
There, there you go.
To come back for the podcast.
Stacy, you said something I, Ireally appreciate and it's that
you and the team, youacknowledge that it's not always
gonna be balanced.
There are.
I think that's the truth.
Yet, I think it doesn't get setall the time.
Like, oh we're, we've got our,and I work life balance a

(04:04):
little.
My opinion is played out, butthis idea that you're gonna get
it is, especially when you'rerunning a company that's a
software company.
You have sales, you are doingsoftware sprints, you have
important clients, you'reservicing people around the
globe.
There are gonna be times whenit's not gonna feel balanced and
that's actually normal and okay.
So I really appreciate that yousay that and then you
acknowledge that with your teamand ask them for the same.

Yeah, and, and I think the other sort of misnomer
that that is portrayedineffectively across social
media is the fact that thingsneed to be perfect and you're
gonna launch with a perfectproduct and your client clients
are always gonna be incrediblyhappy.
And of course, my clients arealways incredibly happy.

Jason Frazell (04:43):
Oh, every time, hundred percent.

But you know, their expectation of perfection
in all of us is something thatI've had to work past as sort of
a perfectionist, a self appliedperfectionist.

Yeah.
Letting

things go, getting to development, getting to MVP,
knowing you have bugs, pushingthrough that fear of failure.
Even though, you know, it'sreally not about failure.
The pro, you know, the, the newplatform is gonna be incredible,
but you've gotta get out thereto get real advice, real, real
feedback from the real world.
Your team is a closed loop, a aclosed circle of conversation,

(05:16):
and until you really push it outthere, you don't know what's
gonna happen.

Yeah.
So

the, the balance, I think also allows you to take
a moment.
Allows to step out of theforest, maybe see the forest
through the trees a little bit,gain a little emotional
perspective that I think addsvalue when you get back into
those sprints, those tough timesand yeah, it's tough.
Yeah.
You're not gonna win if you'renot bleeding.
And, and I, I think that peopleneed to understand that as well

(05:43):
as it, it's supposed to bedifficult.
Yeah.
If it's not difficult, you'reprobably not trying hard enough.

Speaker (05:48):
Yeah.
So how do you think about, sohow do you think about the.
The perfectionist.
That that's a, that's aninteresting thing as well.
Folks that I know that areperfectionists, they have
trouble letting go of thatbecause that, that isn't a way,
a way to protect and conliterally contra, protect and
control as somebody who'sleading company with a bunch of

(06:12):
other people who don't do itexactly like you or nor did, nor
should they.
Mm-hmm.
And in a techno, in a space,there is no such thing as
perfection.
Show me a perfect piece ofsoftware and I'll say, you're
lying to me.
How did, how, what have you doneto manage or grow that part of
your, like your skillset andyour personality to become a
more effective leader?

It, it took me a minute.
You know, over the last 12 yearswe've been building strategic
communication software for laborunions, nonprofits.
Our mission and goal has been tocentralize this fractured data
and tool set.
So nonprofit are using like 15tools.
Three different programs.
They've got data everywhere.

(06:52):
We have data security issuespotentially.
So, you know, the idea that allof that would come together in a
perfect little scenario isunrealistic.
Yeah.
So for me, what, what's workedbest is to embrace the, the
feedback from customers toembrace the upset, sort of
embrace that as a positive.

So

for me, I'm using that as they're helping me grow
my ip, they're helping mebroaden my perspective.
They're giving me insight andvaluable information that all,
although at first it might comeacross as negative, it's really
only negative if I choose toview it that way.
Yeah.
So letting, letting go.
Perfectionism has a lot to dowith, I think the feedback that
you get, that it's not perfect.

So by

letting that expectation go and getting
really excited, motivated.
Hyped up about all of thefeedback that you're gonna, that
you're gonna get.
And by the way, the feedbackthat we've been getting majority
is 90% plus is positive.

Sure, yeah.
You know, it's

very rarely I think we take the one little
negative feedback that we sortof, you know, exaggerate that in
in the bigger scale, but lettinggo and embracing all feedback of
every kind, the good, bad, andthe ugly, the people that leave
comments on, you know, when I doa podcast and say whatever it
might be.
Hey, it's great feedback.
I can learn from it.

(08:11):
We can move on.
Yeah.
So I think for me, theperfectionism helping us grow
more strategically, utilizingdifferent perspectives is not
just internal to my team.
Yeah.
But I've included my clients inthat perspective and that's
helped me kind of roll backthose un you know, unexpected
or, or, or larger than lifeexpectations that are not
realistic.

Speaker (08:31):
Yeah.
The icebreaker question ornetworking question.
What's something you wish youcould tell your younger self?
One of my favorite ones isyou're not gonna be for
everybody.
Nobody.
There's nobody on the planetthat's gonna go, I, everybody
adored that person and thatincludes the businesses we run,
the technology we build.
It's just not, and I'm, I'mlaughing'cause I, I came from

(08:51):
the software industry.
I's laughing, I'm, you get theone off.
It's like, well, the softwaredoesn't do this and it's the
only person who'd ask it.
And that feedback still stings.
Mm-hmm.
Because as good people who wannado good things in the world.
We wanna support everybody andthen you look and you go, that
just doesn't make sense from abusiness perspective.

E exactly.
So you know, you can get lostand go down a wormhole, you
know, mic micro adjustingfeatures.
Right.
Really spending thousands ofhours of, of.
Business analyst time andfeature experts and developers
just to go down a rabbit holefor less than 2% of your client
base.
When really, you know, it'sgreat feedback to take into

(09:30):
consideration across the wholemarket.
You probably need to do some reresearch to see if that applies
more broadly and people aren'tjust elevating that particular
perspective, but more likely I'mnot.
It is not the path that yoursoftware should be on, and you
need to, you know, sort of takethat with a grain of salt.
Yeah.
Which is an old, an old saying,but, but more applicable to

(09:51):
software, I think and, and evenrunning a company than anything
because you're gonna go aheadand change your methodology and
your approach for every littlepiece of feedback that doesn't
match your sort of perfectionistideal.
You're gonna end up nowhere,right?
So yeah, that's been the biggestchanging journey for us is
really, really honing in onwhere we are, where our

(10:12):
strengths are, double downing onthose strengths, and being
really excited to embrace.
All different levels of, offeedback.

Speaker (10:19):
Yeah.
You're gonna end up in a productroadmap hell, where you're never
actually doing the things thatyou're strategically set out to
do and you're filling in featurerequests.
I had a, yeah,

we we've never been there.

Speaker (10:28):
Yeah, no, never.
Nobody's ever done that to getthe revenue.
No.
I worked for a series a startupwhere that's all we did for
about two years.
Like what is Yeah.
That one person, one who'swilling to pay us.

I, I think the other thing is that even the
largest, you know, mostwell-known companies in the
world, they're not that muchdifferent culture wise from

No,

from most companies.
Right.
So they have no.
Their product roadmap,disagreements, you know, they've
got teams that are arguing anddebating, you know, where to go
with the software, what's abetter fit?
Yeah, what's a better analysis,what's a better, you know,
marketplace.
And so I don't think anythingthat we've experienced in our
last eight years of double digitgrowth is sort of out of the
norm for what the industry is.

Speaker (11:06):
Yeah.
Thanks Stacy.
I'd like to move next.
Let, I want to talk about NEPspecifically.
You all serve a really, to meit's a really interesting.
Really interesting place in themarket and what you do, and I
want to talk first about why orthe genesis of why you're here
today and what had you and theteam created, and then what's

(11:28):
the big issue that's in thisspace, and talk about the space
and then we'll wrap theconversation.
As a leader, I want to get yourperspective on hiring for
culture and some of the otherthings that you think about as
you go, Hey, like three yearsfrom now or five years from now,
we're gonna need to double theteam.
Who do we hire for?
Because we've technicalexpertise is becoming, to me, is

(11:48):
cheaper and cheaper and easierand easier to find between
technology and people.
And it's all about do you getalong and do you work well?
So first of all, let's talkabout the space.
I'll just give a little highlevel then go deep with this
here.
So any P services you supportspecifically nonprofits, unions.
Around and you mentioned aroundcommunications and bringing a

(12:11):
membership or groups of peoplethat are either paying or in, in
nonprofit space donors togetherand allowing you to communicate
more effectively and do more ofthat.
That's an interesting space.
As somebody who we, we areinvolved in a nonprofit, I am
not in a union.
That is not a space that I wouldgenerally think about that much.
I.
So I'm, I'm, I'm really curiouslike that, a little bit about

(12:33):
the challenges in that space andthen why you all, why do you
support that space?

Yeah.
So, you know.
Well, I believe that you canmake a profit and do good in
this world.
Yes.
I might be one of few peoplethat do, but I, I tend to lean
to the optimism side of thetable and say, I think actually
most people really want to addvalue in, in, in their current
job, which, you know, workingfor a private company and, you

(12:58):
know, they're volunteering at anonprofit.
They're working at a local food,food bank.
So I believe in the collectivepower of that as a mechanism to
enhance our communities,thinking about how we can work
together more efficiently.
It takes a village.
It takes a tribe.
And, and our company does thatin a technology directive.
So our big top level goal.

(13:20):
Is to take nonprofits and makethem more efficient.

Hmm.
Hopefully

they run their operational efficiency, you
know, six 10 Xs so that the moreof the donor dollar can go back
to a cause.
And so there's a lot of excitingopportunities.
You know, we're, we're lookingand we have some RD projects
using AI inside of our platformthat's gonna give our.
Organizations ability to adaptto changing economy, ability to

(13:46):
communicate strategically and inparticular for our labor unions.
You know, labor unions are a bigrepresentation of the middle
class.
Mm-hmm.
The working American, you know,working hard every day for good
and fair pay.
And I, I personally think thattheir voice needs to be fair and
balanced among private interest.

(14:09):
And Fortune 500.
That is how we achieve sort of abalanced economy.
That is the, the give and takebetween in, in a culture that
only serves the elite in aneconomy that also represents a
fair and balanced working man.
That everyone can work a hardday and earn a fair pay.
And there has to be push andpull in that.

(14:30):
And so our labor unioncommunication strategically
allows them to.
Organize a very frac, fracturedset of data.

Mm-hmm.
And

streamline their ability to manage communication
software with an all-in-oneemail, text, social integration
chat document storage.
It's an ERP basically.

Yeah.

To help these organizations be more efficient.
And the goal is that, you know,they can elevate their concerns
and they're not, they're notleft to, you know, sort of
compete with Fortune fivecompany, fortune 500 companies,
and 100 companies and lobbyistsand legislators who have budgets
that are, you know, 16 timesthere.
So we're helping them elevatethat conversation and, and have

(15:13):
a seat at the table.

Speaker (15:14):
Mm-hmm.
What are, I always like to askpeople in the technology space,
what are they doing if they'renot using something like, like
the products you provide, whatare they doing instead?

Yeah, that's a great question.
We had this discussion yesterdayand, you know, they're, they're
using a lot, a variety of toolsthat are one offs.
And then there's a big chunk ofthe market that's really
unrealized.
So we see our market as growingover the next 10 years, and I
don't think we're the only ones.
But I think the opportunity forefficiency and the way that

(15:43):
we're structuring communicationbetween organizations is very
unique and I think that'll bringa lot of value.
That'll streamline a lot ofadministrative time where those
individuals can be doing theimportant work of.
Working with members, helpingmembers get access to
healthcare.
You know, helping them findin-network care options versus
utilizing out there's.

(16:06):
And save time and effort reducebureaucracy.
And, and that trickles down toevery, every single member in
that organization, that laborunion, that nonprofit, and that
trickles down to supportingcommunity.
Yeah.
And have a bigger budget to giveback.
So Sure.
These are all areas that we canimprove upon and, and that's our
mission.

Speaker (16:23):
Yeah.
I'll, I'm gonna brag, I'm gonnabrag you on, you brag on you for
a little bit.
You didn't talk about who youwork with, and I'm not gonna
name specific, like, specificchapters, but you do business
with.
Some of the biggest unions herein the United States.
At least that's, so if you, ifyou were Google the top 10
unions by membership or youknow, like you're doing business
with a lot of them, I'll leaveit at that.

(16:44):
So we're talking about massiveimpact and massive scale.
We're talking a large populationsupported.
This isn't a niche thing.
And I know you work with a lotof fairly large nonprofits as
well, and I knew you weren'tgonna brag on yourself, Stacy,
so I was gonna do that for you.
Oh,

you're, you're kind, you're kind.
Yeah.
We're very proud to work a lotin the first responders space.
I mean, we believe in caring forour first responders.
They believe in giving policeand firefighter officers and
opportunity to elevate concernsthat they see on the, and their
unions are able to do that.
Have discussion and debate aboutpolicy issues.

(17:17):
Be to elevate their concerns.
I mean, that is what thiscountry was founded on, was
robust discussion, disagreementand they're a part of that
important feedback loop and allof that helps keep our community
safer.
You know, in addition, justgeneral labor, labor unions as
well, and nonprofits, I mean,some of the direct mail and

(17:39):
digital fundraising tools thatwe've innovated.
Probably have saved hundreds ofmillions of dollars for
nonprofits in fulfillment andprocessing.

Speaker (17:47):
It's amazing.

Our new help, a hero.com crowdfunding tool is a
unique tool in the sense thatall of the data of the donors
that comes through is neverresold or shared with any third
party marketing.
That's just sort of a datasecurity piece that I am very,
very critical on.
Yeah.
You know, when you get thosespam and telemarketing calls.

Yep.

You know that, that that's because someone
resold that data Yep.
Or shared that data.
And I just, I don't believe thatthat's the way of the future.
And I believe in personalprivacy.
So that data is kept, neverreshared.
And each nonprofit canholistically use that.
Yeah.
For whatever campaign they need.
You're not inundated with abunch of garbage calls.

Speaker (18:28):
I'm you obviously, Stacy, they can't see us, but
I'm smiling because I am, youknow this, we're recording this.
Couple weeks after the, a weekand a half after the
presidential of the electionshere in the United States.
And I got emails from varioussenate races from states that I
have nothing to do with.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Frazell (2) (18:47):
And that's obviously because my data
somehow got them and I, it'sactually, it's actually a waste
of resources.
Like, I, I don't, I'm, I live inNew York.
I can't vote in the state ofOhio or wherever it is.
And they weren't even asking formoney.
They were like asking for me togo out and vote for them.
I said, this is a waste ofresources and a waste of my
time.
Yeah, and I'm sure there's, youprobably have the horror stories

(19:08):
of where, where, what things canhappen.
We won't even, we won't even gointo the horror of all these
things.
I'm wanna ask you next why thisspace?
Like what's the, what's theorigin story?

Well, I, I think my origin story is gonna be very
similar to my team's originstory.
Everyone that works with us isincredibly passionate about some
part of our business or somesegment of our customer base for
some reason.
So I'll, I'll give you a littlebit of mine, but just understand
that we really hire and we lookfor culture and fit and
personality in addition toskill.

(19:44):
But I, I, I believe working wellon teams and collaboration is a,
a 10 x to maybe a, having atechnical skill.
So to all those young people outthere Yeah, who think that you
know, they have to have all the,the advanced degrees, maybe it
also means they need a littlebit of experience, a little bit
of getting their hands dirty ortime maturing working with the
team.

(20:05):
So, you know, growing up, and Ithink, again, this is very
similar to my coworkers, I wasreally involved in a lot of
community causes.
I enjoyed working at a localsoup kitchen, someone Cares Soup
Kitchen in Costa Mesa, which isan incredible organization.
We had a lot of challenges in myfamily growing up, so it gave me
perspective, you know?
Mm-hmm.
It, it could always be worse.

(20:26):
Yeah.
So I was very blessed to bebrought up in a culture where I
really need, it's not all aboutme.
You know, and, and what I wantfor my birthday.
And I think there's a little bitof that issue now with, with
parents who raise kids.
Yep.
You know, it, it's a broaderperspective and I was raised
giving back, investing in thecommunity.
So working with NEP and helpingnonprofits be more efficient,

(20:48):
and ultimately that was theperfect fusion of business and
giving back and making the worlda better place.
You know, hopefully someday I'llbe a philanthropist and have the
opportunity to work with some ofthe greatest philanthr
philanthropists around theworld.
Yeah.
Belinda Gates you know, and so.
I think this is my opportunityto make a little impact with the

(21:08):
nonprofits that we serve.
Yeah.
Either by saving them funds,making them more efficient,
helping them raise more funds tocreate a bigger impact in their
local community or theirmembers.
And that was my journey.
And so this for me, every day Iwake up blessed to work with an
incredible set of coworkers whoshare my passion.

(21:29):
Who constantly educate me onwhat's happening on the ground.
Mm-hmm.
And how we can do better andchanging conditions for
nonprofits.
You know, just like businessesand Fortune five hundreds,
nonprofits are affected by theeconomy.

Sure.
Local,

you know, individuals who are part of
unions are affected by.
You know, inflation and shrinkinflation.
So there's a lot that we can doto help each one of these
organizations and be and pivotas much as a, a fortune 500
business to add value andimprove the condition of, you
know, our neighbor.
Because what we're reallytalking about is people they

(22:02):
serve are probably our neighbor,a guy down the block.

Totally.

These are, these are not individuals that don't
have a face.
These are people already live inyour community.

Speaker (22:13):
I, yeah, I'm, I'm friends with a variety of
firefighters and police andyeah, amazing people.
And they, they, you know, livinghere on the East coast, you know
that this is kinda like groundzero for, for union, just based
on the history, at least forlike emergency services and such
and great people.

(22:33):
They were doing work that at theend of the day I was laughing.
You know, kind of business I runand the kind of business you
run, nobody's dying andnothing's on fire every day.
These people are literallydealing with those things, and
you probably said this to yourteam, sometimes you're like,
you're like, is any, iseverybody still alive and is
anything on fire?
If the answer is yes and no,we're gonna be fine.
These people literally aredealing with that every day.

No, I mean, absolutely.
The stories that we hear, Imean, again, working our team,
we have, I don't know,culturally we have like 87%
retention with our team.
I think it's because it alsogives us a little perspective.
Yeah.
You know, what we're, we thinkwhat we're doing is the most
important thing in the world andwe are very proud of it.
We are really client-centric andfocused on how we build features

(23:17):
and have only improved that whenit comes down to it.
What we do is nothing comparedto the sacrifices of labor
unions and steelworkers, youknow, that are out there hanging
from bridges, making sure thatyou and I can get to work on
time.
Yeah, right.
They're, they're building up theinfrastructure that makes the
economy run and we sort offorget that.
We take that for advantage.

(23:38):
You know, I can walk down thestreet and not bemed, well,
there's a, who's traveled andbeen sort of countries I don't
have.
As great of a police and fireand public safety infrastructure
as we do in the United States.
I mean, there are risks when yougo to the grocery store.
There are risks.
Absolutely.
You know, when your kid walkshome from school.

(24:00):
And, and for the most part,there are areas where we can
make significant improvementsacross the country and we can
always do better.
But you know, I'm, I'm proud towork with all the first
responders and, and we sort offorget that.
We forget that.
Literally things are on fire andthey're being shot at.

Speaker (24:14):
Yeah, literally.
Literally things are on fire.
What I wanna talk a little bitabout leadership and I, I
interview a lot of leaders inthis show.
I always like to get the uniqueperspectives.
We all can learn from you, andeverybody's a little bit
different.
So how do you look at, how doyou look at running a company

(24:37):
and running the team?
And I always like to start with.
What do you spend most of yourtime doing?
Because I, I get that, I, I askthat question and people gimme
different answers.
So what do you spend your timedoing and what do you spend most
of your time thinking about?

I.
It's a good question.
I'll answer it in two ways.
Yes.
What I spend most of my timedoing, and, and this comes from
when you build a product, youget so ingrained and, and
obsessed with the product, andit takes a while for you to kind
of pull back and see the widerplaying field.
So.
I still spend a lot of time in,with the product.

(25:12):
I spend a lot of time withcustomers, I think in our growth
cycle right now as we're, youknow, doubling every year.
Mm-hmm.
Expanding, we're in 34 states.
Amazing.
In probably six, 16 differentsectors of labor unions and, and
organizations and nonprofits.
You know, meeting with customerson the ground, going to them,
having face-to-face meetings,it's not just always a Zoom

(25:33):
world.
I find those opportunitiesincredibly valuable.
I also find the opportunity alot of times when I do that to
meet with other third partyproviders

and

they also broaden my perspective.
And so a lot of my time rightnow is spent broadening my
perspective about product, aboutclient fit, about our.
The more the, you know, the moreexpertise I can learn along the
way, I think the better I canlead the team.
And then really the other sideof it's, I think as a leader, I

(26:07):
try to get out of the way.
Yeah, one of my goals for hiringis to hire people that are
smarter than me, that aresavvier than me, that have more
experience than I do.
I do not want to know it all.
That sounds awful.
I, it does.
Yeah.
You know, I, I really wannasurround myself with people that
are better than me.
And I, I feel like over the lastfive and six years, we've really

(26:30):
broadened our hiring strategy todo that, and, and a very much
focus on recruitment.
And I think the other sort offallacy in business, and I'm
probably gonna rub people thewrong way with this, but Please
do.
Right.
I, I like teams.
That sort of create conflict.
Yeah.
I like putting a team togetherwith different perspectives now.

(26:51):
I don't, I don't need a, a dragout brawl, but what I do need is
I need a, a team that representsdifferent perspectives.
So I'll, I'll typically approacha problem from a very business
angle, more of a businessanalyst.
When we're discussing a featurepotentially, or, or a client
issue.
I have people on the team wherethey are going to live and die
by representing the client andwhat team members.

(27:17):
They're conversations that youhave to have, and it's okay to
have a difficult conversation.
It's okay to disagree.
It's okay to hang up the phonecall and be like, I don't know
where we got on that.
We did not resolve that.

Mm.
But we

got a lot of different perspectives on the
table.
And that provides us anopportunity to really let that
resonate, you know, circle backto that feature.
And so you spend a lot of timethinking about those different
perspectives.
And even if you don't initiallyagree with them, I find that.
Sort of puts together the piecesin your, in your head when
you're meeting with otherclients and things fit

(27:49):
differently together.
Yeah.
When you allow yourself to havethese very uncomfortable
conversations.
And so one of the, thestrategies for hiring is that I
don't wanna live in my own ececho chamber.

Yeah.

And so over the last five and six years we've
hired and we've grown ourculture.
Disagreement is hard, but weneed to embrace it.

How do

Speaker (28:08):
you know what to delegate in terms of tough
decisions and conversations andhow do you know when you need to
make the final call?
'cause most leaders that I workwith and we talk about, that's
arguably the hardest part aboutleadership is it does fall on
you at the end of the day, whichis why you're doing what you're
doing.
But how do you, how do you know?

(28:29):
Is it, is it like, I'll give yousome different examples.
Is it certain dollar amount?
Is it.
Two people just can't agree.
And you need to play almost likethe mediator or be like the, I
wouldn't call you objectivethird party, be the third party.
You know, some leaders are like,make all the decisions until I
tell you I wanna make adecision.
And others are like, bringeverything to me.
And then it sounds like you'remost likely somewhere in the

(28:50):
middle, like most people are.
How do you think about that andhow do you know when,'cause
there's, as you know, there's alot of value in delegating big
decisions to your team to havethem feel empowered so that
you're not always stepping overthem or having to be the final
say.
So I'm curious how you thinkabout that.

Yeah, I think as a company to your point, we've
evolved from a space where wehad a very sort of top to about,
top to bottom, you know we givea, an order, you know, we, we
say we wanna do this, and, andpeople march along.
Yeah.
And NEP as a company, especiallyagain from our hiring strategy
of hiring experts we've evolvedto a place where teams run

(29:26):
pretty independently, and I.
And I really do love that.
I do not want to micromanage.
I think people typically knowwhere I stand on an issue.
So there's this overwhelming,like, we know Stacy's not gonna
like it, but they know that I,they can reason with me and they
can win.
And they can present their caseand their set of evidence, and I
wanna have that difficultdiscussion.

(29:47):
I wanna hear their pushback to.

So

I think that's where I land.
And as a leader, I, I try ashard as possible not to do it
myself and to delegate thosedecisions where I don't even, I
don't even need to make them.
I'm at a, we are at a point inour company where we have
independent divisions andsupport staff.
They make their own independentdecisions.
They look at the data.

(30:11):
We have our own internal sortof, we have our own internal
KPIs.

Sure.

That we audit, that we measure.
We do a great job, especially onour fundraising side and our
digital advocacy, politicaloutreach team of measuring our
successes, creating our owninternal postmortems or case
studies.
Thinking about how we can dobetter next time and, and that a
lot of that has been from theleadership of our president,
mark Trilio, who comes from thefirefighters, has been from the

(30:39):
leaders like our director ofoperations from Devon, who's
been managing our direct mailfundraising for almost 20, 25
years.
Wow.
Yeah.
And a lot of our other teammembers that are real seasoned
in their, in their industryYeah.
And bring that expertise, but.
Not so seasoned that they'reunwilling to listen to
innovative ideas.

(30:59):
So the other component is thatthe youngest team members are a
part of the conversation, and Ithink that's an enormous
improvement in our culture.
And over the last five years,our products now you could see
the results.
Yeah.

You know,

people that are on the ground level have a voice in
what we build, how we build it,clients we serve, what we should
be focusing on, and moreimportantly, what we should not
be focusing on.

Speaker (31:23):
Yeah.
It's such a, such a context.
Context shift.
From historically how unions andthings like police and fire
work, where it's actually yourtenure and your experience in
the field, you get and you get,like, I'm, I'm thinking of even
like teachers, you get paid forthe amount of time you get
additional pay for the amount oftime you've done it, not
necessarily for the output orthe the outcome.

(31:44):
And so that, I'm sure that'sbeen a bit of an adjustment for
some of those who've come fromthese spaces where, you know,
you're not gonna make detectivewhen you're 25 because you just
don't have enough time on thestreet yet.
Really cool.
Stacy, I wanna talk about twoother things to wrap up here.
Number one is, and you, youalluded to this earlier, hiring,

most folks I know will say that hiring, test.
Test, yeah.
Weird.
It just flipped.
I'm getting

Speaker (32:11):
an echo on my side.
Strange.
The echo.
Echo now

my, my AirPods disconnected somehow and that
whole shifts, I mean,

yeah, it's weird.
Yeah, it's weird.
I'm in a strange echo.
Test.
Test.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
There we go.
That's good.
Yep.
Can you hear me now?

Speaker (32:29):
Yes, I can hear you.
Can you hear me?

Okay, great.
You're far away again for somereason, but Okay.

Speaker (32:34):
Let's try this again.
Test, test.
Oh, you're

back.
You're back.
Yeah, you're back.

Speaker (32:37):
Great.
Awesome.
Yeah, it was weird.
Your video switched too.
You know, software.
Software.
Never.
Perfect.

Yeah, exactly.
Mark, I'm gonna mark

Speaker (32:44):
that clip and I'll get rid of it.
Let's see what I was about.
I'm gonna about, I'm gonnahiring.
Yeah.
I'm gonna say, hey, a couple ofthe things.
Wrap up the convo, da da, da.
Let mark this.
And 3, 2, 1.
Stacy, a couple of things Iwanna address with you and get
your perspective on what, numberone, and you've alluded to this,
is hiring.
And most folks in business thatI know will say that this is

(33:07):
arguably the hardest thing to dobecause it's easy to move
around.
It's a lot of times people,you're competing on money, et
cetera.
So I'd love to talk about howyou hire and retain something
like an 87% retention rate is, Iwould, I would argue that's
extremely high in technology.
A lot of mercenaries, I callmercenaries, go for the highest

(33:29):
dollar working on the productthat most interests'em that
week.
How do you maintain that andwhat do you do upfront to make
sure when that person walks inthe door or gets on Zoom for the
first time, that they're likelyto be part of that 87% who stays
with you for a long tenure?

Yeah, I think one of the best pieces of advice,
which is, you know, not myadvice, but I we've tried to
follow it, is, you know, hireslowly.
Fire quickly.

Yeah.

You know, it's not ruthless, it's you, I think
emotionally and sort ofintuitively know if someone's a
good culture fit, probablywithin a month.
If not sooner.
And then I think, you know,that's one of the areas that
we've done, we've done betteralso, you know, our, our
strategy was to expand verytargeted regionally by region.

(34:17):
We expanded our hiring practicesand set up offices on the east
coast, you know, five years agoand in, and in Texas, and in
Washington, DC as well.
And then hired to support thatand then really focus on
supporting staff, building ateam around that, that
individual or that thatstrategy.
So making sure they're not ontheir own island, I think is a
great retention tool.

(34:37):
Mm-hmm.
And that's harder now than everwith remote work.
We still struggle with that.
I think being on the ground andI, I try to make.
At least quarterly calls andconnections with every employee.
Obviously some of the juniorones that have just joined our
team are gonna be, you know, thesort of the last ones on my
list.
Sure.
Not for any, any reason that Ijust can't get to everyone

(35:00):
anymore.
Sure.
But, you know, I, I personallythink, you know, when I'm
hiring, I don't ever post to thehighest top level salary
purposefully.
I don't.
I, if you wanna work with us,we're a mission-based,
passion-based, growing, youknow, startup culture.
We don't need the missionaries.
We don't need people that areonly there for the money because

(35:22):
what we do is so much greaterthan the dollars that are, that
go back in our pockets now as agrowing company too, you know,
we need to be as competitive aswe can with our for-profit.
Other for-profit competitors,and so

sure

we've done a good job, I think, of combining
culture with a hiring processthat focus on, focuses on
personality, teamwork,communication skills, you know,
and placing them in the right.
I.
The right scenario with theright support and on the right
team, like really getting buttsin the seats where they should
be Yeah.
Is one of the hardest job.

(35:54):
And yeah.
One of the things that, when wesee that, if your butt is not in
the right seat, one of thethings we do pretty quickly and
well now is, Hey, what are yourthoughts about, you know,
working on this team?
Or, yeah.
You know, and we, I, I encouragemanagers to talk.
To their, their team and thenself-identify through
conversation and sort ofmentorship of, you know, your

(36:15):
skillset over here is, is, youknow, really natural.
You seem to be like a, you seemto be a pro of having these very
natural conversations withclients.
Clients opened up to you, you,you display trust.
Have you ever thought aboutthis?
So we've had a lot of employeesthat have shift teams and, and
you know, sort of made lateralmoves at our company.
They've brought it to ourattention or we've suggested it,

(36:37):
and I think that helps withretention and helps with, you
know, building a, a culture oflegacy as well.
Awesome.
That provides value back to theproduct and as well, so again,
I, I really hire forpersonality.
You know, I'm not if, if, youknow, we have a long term play,
you know, just like any othercompany in the software space,
but it's gonna take grind andhustle and they have to be

(36:59):
willing to do that.

Speaker (37:00):
Yeah.
Thanks Stacy.
I wanna wrap and ask you, if youlook back at your time at NEP
specifically, what's thetoughest lesson that you've had
to learn?
Or maybe you're still learning?

Always, always, still learning.

Speaker (37:16):
Probably still learning most, like most of us.

Wow.
The toughest lesson.
You know, I.
This past year, I'm, I'm a veryproactive money on the ball, you
know, eye on the prize, highlycompetitive individual,
naturally.
I come from an athleticbackground.
I wanna be the best ineverything that I do, and I
wanna win 100% of the time.

(37:42):
So I think one of the bestlessons I've learned, and it's
again, another kind of sort ofcliche, but I've learned more in
my significant failures.
Than I have in my wins.
And so now I, I really doembrace when I lose a deal or,
you know, it's a better productmarket fit.
But I thought, I, I thought Igot it.
You know, a channel partnershipdidn't work out the way that I,

(38:04):
you know, intended oranticipated.
I, I learned more in thosemoments than ever.
They are what they are.
And so as a wise man once said,never let a good crisis go to
waste.
Yeah.
And so I spent a lot of timethinking about the areas that we
could have done better, how wecould have pivoted faster.
I really utilize a mentorshipnetwork that I didn't have

(38:26):
previously to help give meoutside perspective and insight
into my losses.
You know, I think as a leaderyou've gotta figure out what
helps you process.
Negatives as quickly as possibleand put that into usable
feedback that you can, you know,deploy back to your team.
Yeah.
So whether that is exercise orwhether that is a mentorship,
whether that's, you know,someone trusted with within your

(38:49):
company, that you can have thesecasual but poignant and honest,
transparent conversations.
I think as a leader, I, I'mlearning how to do that better
and better.

Yep.

And really take those losses and redeploy them
as wins as long-term strategicchanges or wins.
Ultimately, if I don't lose, ifI lose today, I, I wanna be set
up to win tomorrow.
Yeah.
And then that's, I think all ofour employees are really good at
pivoting in that moment.
That's

Speaker (39:16):
great.
I'm also extremely competitiveand you didn't say one thing
that I find useful.
Sometimes it's a good screaminto a pillow.

The, hence the, he hence the cold plunges.
You know, that is, thats my ownself.

Speaker (39:27):
Like who?
Yeah.
Like, I'm gonna torture myselfin a way that's actually good
for my body, even though it'sgonna feel painful.

You, you know, I, I'm, I'm a girl who loves a
great meal and some cocktails aswell, so, you know.
Yeah.
You've, you've gotta work inyour social time with your
friends and family.
Yeah.
It's not gonna be a prioritywhen.
You're a growing company.
So yeah, for all thoseentrepreneurs out there who
think they're gonna have worklife balance and they've been
watching Instagram videos aboutbeing your own boss, it is the
hardest job in the world, Iwould say, besides motherhood, I

(39:56):
think mother motherhood andparenting takes the cake.
But in the professional worldyou know, un, unless you've got
some sweet deal that I don'tknow about.
Yeah, it's a 24 7, 365 grind.
The rewards are great if you canget there.
Yeah.
But the stress and the time, soyeah.
Scream into a pillow.
Jump into a freezing cold ocean.
Yeah.
Whatever you've gotta do, do, doboxing, whatever you gotta do.

Speaker (40:19):
Yeah.
Stacey, this is such an ironicthing to say.
It looks like you're on youryacht right now and like, it
seems like you've got a party.
I'm kidding.
Yeah.
It's like these, I I, I hatethose influencer of like, work
two hours a day and do this.
It's just, it's absolutelyridiculous.

Yeah.
And, and sort of, I don't knowif it's setting up this younger
generation for success byproviding them this.
Sort of glorified dream wherethey could dream to do anything.
And that's great.
We want, we want innovators.
Yeah.
We want more entrepreneurs.
We want people thinking outsideof the box, disrupting the
market.
Like I love all that aspect, butsort of the fantasize, idealized

(40:53):
version that they can live inBali, I.
You know, and, and sort of runtheir company remote, like,
yeah, please message me if youfigured out how to do that.
You're like,

Speaker (41:02):
I'm gonna do that too, but only if you only if it
works.
Yeah.
No,

I, I'll I, my whole team will, we all will,
you know, all, just all go toValley.

Speaker (41:08):
Yeah.

I don't, I don't think that's realistic and No,
and, but I think there's so muchvalue being a part of a company,
whatever stage of growth you'rein, where you really feel
fulfilled, you feel heard andyou're building good things to
help people.
You know, improve or, or dobetter, add more value, whatever
that is.
So it doesn't have to be just inthe nonprofit space, but you
could still have a, a greatlife.

(41:30):
Yeah.
And still go to Bali on yourvacations.

Speaker (41:33):
Yeah, exactly.
La last, I do have one morequestion for you, and then just
a question about what's next forNEP, but what's the next big
thing that you are working onaround your own growth as a
leader and as a business, as abusiness leader?
What's the thing that you, youhave your eye on for.
But no specific length of time,but that you've identified as
like, Hey, that's the next thingI really want to focus on or

(41:53):
work on for myself.

For myself as, as a leader is, is continuing to
expand our ability to takefeedback from customers being, I
say this a lot, we're verycustomer centric.
We listen.
Yeah, we listen, we listen, weask questions.
We're curious.
We're almost ob I'm al almostobsessively curious.
So I think continuing that,trying to balance that with,
with growing the company as welland, and hiring.

(42:17):
Yeah, and scaling our, ourcompany.
For as far as what's next isthat we've spent the last four
years sort of doing thatinternal hard work that people
don't love, which is settingyour own systems up to scale.
That's not the glamorous work,but we've done all that work and
we're in a great spot where wecan scale effectively and
economically viably

nice

over, over the next five years, which is great
and really, really improve our.
Marketing so that we can, wehave now three SaaS platforms.
Yeah.
So, and those ips all worktogether and have their own
little, little niche and so.
That internal hard work is, isgonna pay off.
So that's good.
That's sort of the next best,best thing that I'm thinking of.

(42:58):
Yeah.
Is how do we take all thatingenuity, all that year, all
that hard work of replatformingsetting everything up to scale.
You know, we have three quartersof a million users on our
Connect Plus platform.
Amazing.
Those are actually member-basedorganizations.
Yeah.
So being able to scale.
You know, over the next fiveyears and know that our

(43:19):
software's in a spot for allthree platforms.
That is, you know you know,reliable.
We can really focus on, you knowsort of the market conditions
and, and feature focused, whichis great.
Yeah,

Speaker (43:31):
every, every visionary CEO's favorite terminology.
Technical debt.
Oh, oh.
So exciting.

No, I think technical debt is such a great
lesson and I had there was agentleman who, who worked with
me and he really gave me someincredible advice and
perspective on technical debtand I will always be grateful to
him for that.
And I actually use that toexplain that to my customers
now, because I think what youdon't realize is every dollar
you spend going forward fromthis moment on is a wasted

(44:02):
dollar, you know, in the rightsitua situation.
So sometimes it's better to bitethe bullet and re-platform or
completely refactor an entirefeature than it is to patchwork
it.
Yeah.
And I think that's where we'veoutperformed our competitors.
Great.
As we did the hard work, weinvested our, our profits, we
invested in.
Having the most innovative,innovative tech stack and now

(44:25):
we're winning on the field and,and I think we will continue to
win over the next five years.

Speaker (44:30):
Amazing.
Stacy, thank you much.
Thank you so much for an awesomeconversation.
Really appreciate you know, thatI had one of your team members
on, we'll release that episodeas well, probably back, probably
back to back.
People get to know you, but justreally appreciate the work
you're doing and it's, I thinkit's likely a space that.
I'm just gonna speak for myself,but I, I would assert it's
probably not a space that a lotof us who aren't in that work

(44:52):
actually think much about andjust making those things easier.
I do know a little bit about thenonprofit space and know that
there's always challenges withkeeping your donors engaged and
updated, and how do you do thatin a way that's, you know, and
I'll, I'll leave, I'll leave youwith this.
You, and you know this in thenonprofit space is.

(45:14):
There's always this eye on,well, you should be using the
majority of the money to themission.
But then if you go and dosomething like, and I'm just
using an example from somebodythat I know, they had a really
nice yearend yearend reportpamphlet, not pamphlet, like a
booklet.
And it was nice and it cost thema little bit of money, and they
got a lot of flack because itlooked too nice.
But then when you don't looknice, when you don't look nice,
then they go, well, are you alegitimate nonprofit?

(45:36):
So it's like any, as you all arehelping them to be more
efficient with their messagingand streamline that you can then
don't have to like nickel anddime these other things, which
is like a no-win situation.

Yeah.
Let, let's just talk about thatfor one second because I'm very
passionate on that subject.
Yeah.
So, you know, as a donor, weobviously do want our nonprofits
to be as efficient as possiblewith the donor dollars that we
raise.
But like a business, there areopportunities to buy things in
scale, right?
To save money in bulk.

(46:07):
And so it's, you should bemeasuring results of that
nonprofit and impact.
Overspend.

Yeah.

So you could be, you could raise the most amount
of dollars, you know, you couldbe the top leader of your
fundraising and you know, notspend a dollar and your rating
will be five stars.
I think that is a complete falsenarrative.

Yeah.

I am looking to help organizations that I.
Raise a good amount of money.
You have to invest to raisemore.
You know, one of the things thatwe're really proud of is our
donation, digital donationsoftware and CRM.
Mm-hmm.
We have an 86% retention ratefor donors.
The national average is 45%.

Yeah.

So what does that mean?
I don't have to, we, ournonprofits don't have to send as
many prospect text or emails ormail that saves them money in
the long term.
So you gotta think about, spendfor a nonprofit as one, as an
investment.
And you are measuring yourresults.
You, you can, obviously there'stools out there besides mine
that help you do that moreefficiently Sure.

(47:05):
And cohesively.
But as a donor, you need tothink about impacts more than
you need to think about sort ofthat false narrative rating that
you see out there.

Yeah.
If

they raise a million dollars and they spent
$999,000 on staff.
Right.
But the staff is responsible forvaccinating a hundred million
kids.
That means their labor cost is99% of your donor dollar.
That's right.
It's not what you care about.
We care about impact.
The impact is that theyvaccinated millions of children.

(47:36):
Yeah.
And so a lot of times, andespecially in an age of
technology and ai.
Sometimes in nonprofits, humansare what make the difference.
Totally.
Hiring a dedicated staff, payingstaff for your nonprofit could
be the best investment that youmake because there's gonna be a
continuation of services, agreater impact field better
results.

(47:56):
Yeah.
So I really tell people all thetime, if you're gonna run a
nonprofit, run it like you woulda Fortune 500 business.
You know, hiring great people,retaining your best staff
members, measuring your resultsand impact and what you spend in
your budget should all bedirected to those three areas.
So, you know, I, I see this, I,I see people getting critical

(48:18):
with organizations.
I think I recently saw one withunicef.
UNICEF employs people all, allaround the world.
Yeah.
Delivering lifesaving medicine.
It takes people to do that.
Yes, it takes infrastructure todo that.
To build a clinic is gonna takean investment and so a lot of
what we do is reverse.
Narrative on that is how do youtell your story around impact?

(48:41):
Yeah.
You know, it just can't be, youknow, you, you made pretty
pamphlets.
Well, pretty pamphlets tell yourstory.

Speaker (48:47):
Yeah.

And,

Speaker (48:48):
and attracts serious donors,

attracts serious donors because it means you are
serious about your business.
You are taking your nonprofitsseriously.
Now, granted, there you shouldnegotiate the best price you can
with your printers.
Oh, absolutely.
But at the end of the day.
Impact is what should bemeasured, not just your nine
nineties.
And the fact that you spent 80%on overhead and labor.

(49:11):
Yeah, that labor could bedriving impact that affected a
hundred million people.
Yeah.
And in the, in the perspective,you know, that's nothing, right?
Yeah.
That's a drop in the well toyour impact.
So

Speaker (49:22):
yeah, that,

that, that's my, that's my rant for nonprofit
leaders.
No, this is probably a,

Speaker (49:26):
probably a whole separate podcast episode.
Like this.
This is obviously a, a supercool topic.

Yeah.

Speaker (49:31):
We're, we'll have you back on, we'll actually we'll
talk about this.
I've got one of my good friends,he runs a, like a 45 person
nonprofit, and he, he alwayslikes to say.
We're a charity that doesn't runlike a charity.

Amazing.

Speaker (49:44):
That's how he run, that's how he runs the business.
He, he is got a real goodanalytical business mind and he
does it.

Mm-hmm.

Speaker (49:49):
Because he cares.

Yeah.
One of the nonprofits I've metin New York, you know, say, I
know you're based there,charity, water.
Mm-hmm.
Charity Water does a great job.
They run it, they run it justlike a business and look at the
impact.
Yeah.
Impact is what Measures, right.
Results.
Just, just like any othercompany.

Speaker (50:06):
Small world.
It's, my friend is not withCharity Water, but he's also in
the clean water space.
He does it overseas, but also sothey, they partner with the
charity Water

Amazing.
And water i water.org to do, II'd love to do a field trip.
I've been wanting to get on theground you know, when I can get
a little break from any p andtake a vacation, but I'd love to
spend some time working overseasat, at some point.
So, so maybe we can connect onthat.

Speaker (50:26):
We'll, we'll talk offline.
I've got.
Potential opportunity for you.
Stacy, it was wonderful to haveyou on.
We'll have you back on andcontinue the conversation again,
thanks to you and the team forall the work you're doing and
yeah, keep doing the good workthat we don't even know about.

Yeah.
Thank you so much, Jason.
It was such a fun conversation.

Speaker (50:42):
Thanks, Stacy.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to
Cool People with Jason Frizzell.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please tell your friends, follow
us on Instagram and Facebook andgive us a shout out or take a
moment to leave a review oniTunes.
If something from today'sepisode pique your interest and
you'd like to connect, email usat podcast@jasonzell.com.

(51:06):
We love hearing from ourlisteners because you're cool
people too.

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Stacey Yudin - CEO of NEP Services

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Stacey Yudin - CEO of NEP Services