Latest / Daily Influence / 601. Lead Tech Without Coding: Nelly Yusupova on Process, AI, and Responsible Influence

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601. Lead Tech Without Coding: Nelly Yusupova on Process, AI, and Responsible Influence · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the daily influence where our mission is to deliver a daily dose of positive influence that can uplift you personally or be shared within your sphere of influence.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: While not every episode may directly apply to your unique circumstances, we strive to provide insights and inspiration relevant to most people's daily, weekly, and monthly lives.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you are tuning in during the morning, noon or night, the daily influence is here for you.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, share, and embrace the power of influence in your life.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Cleano.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm excited to welcome Nellie Yusupova, a seasoned technologist, fractional CTO, and founder of TechSpeak.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nellie has dedicated her career to helping non-technical entrepreneurs transform ideas into real scalable products without wasting time and resources.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's also a leader in AI education, which I know we're all excited to hear more about with that being such a hot topic today.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she guides business owners to use AI responsibly and strategically.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her mission is rooted in teaching, mentoring, and empowering others to embrace technology as a positive force for growth and change.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nelly, welcome to daily influence.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now it's such a pleasure to be here, Greg.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll look forward to our conversation.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need to, can you share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today with our listeners?
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, I actually came from a totally non-technical background.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a first-generation immigrant.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I came here with no English, no, like we didn't grow up with technology, we never had a computer.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so when I decided to major in computer science in college, I actually thought that we were going to teach me how to use a computer.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea that you could, like, write code and tell it what to do and what that meant.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where I got started.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then once I understood what it was, I really got excited about it because it showed me that you can actually create something and the power to create the rather than just use the tools was such an appealing concept for me.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I went up and I worked in startups for many years and the advantage of working in a startup is that you get to do everything, not just the one little piece that you're responsible for and I got to build products and lead teams and grow as a
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: as a technology leader, I even did sales and business development and marketing and that really rounded off my experience.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when I decided to go hone in and out the scale on speaking, I started going out and training in teaching and that was my other passion that I discovered.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I married the two, my knowledge in tech and also my love for teaching to the work that I'm doing now.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I started tech speaks specifically after, you know, while I was out and speaking and meeting a lot of founders.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: who a lot of them were non-technical, sharing horror stories with me about how they had an idea partnered up with a tech person and they got burned or they went in outsource the development and it's now six months a year or two years later, they still have nothing to show for it.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So those kind of stories is what led me to start teaching my process and that's what tech speak is.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And of course now, AI is everywhere, so I'm...
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's another tool in our toolbox, so I started teaching AI education as well.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience we felt you made a positive impact on someone's life, one that really enforced why you do what you do?
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the story of how I got into tech speak was so impactful for me.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a friend of mine who
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I met through the community of an organization that I was working at the time called Web Girls.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our mission was to get more women online and involved in technology.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she was a part of the community.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one day, we just see a phone call and she's like, Nelly, I need your help.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she just spent two years working on, yeah, two years working on a startup with a potential technical person.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, I paid her $60,000 already.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she now wants another 20,
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: to continue working.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, what do you mean?
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, have you been so long?
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, have you seen anything?
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, no, I haven't.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have seen bits and pieces, but nothing really,
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: nothing really that working.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I went to the meeting with this woman and realized within seconds that she wasn't even a tech person.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was a project manager about one at that who outsource development could manage the team and needed another $20,000 to finish the project.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we can all guess where that would have ended up.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that was the very
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last draw that I needed to develop technique and I'm like, I have to teach this to founders.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that story comes to mind when one influence the sense then I think what's exciting is that once
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I influence a founder to really go from I don't understand tech to I now know how to lead a team and I actually speak tech.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then they influence not just themselves right like I mean not just influencing them, but the teams that they that they affect the businesses that they affect and they people that they affect through their business, you know, like that's what's exciting for me is that I can influence one person and then it goes down street.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, what a story.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad you were there for her and you had definitely had a positive influence on her and her business and we're able to help her.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our IN team series, we talk about the responsibility of influence.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you see your influence as a teacher, mentor, and fractional CTO shaping the way founders lead their teams and businesses?
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so many ways.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Number one is,
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you speak?
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So number one, like how do you speak the language of whatever it is that you're leading?
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I happen to be working with a lot of people who are building a tech product.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for them,
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: learning the language of tech is really important because once you speak the language, you can then lead so much better.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can influence other people.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can work it more effectively with them.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that gives them the confidence that they need to be able to become better leaders and set their right expectations and the process that they need to implement within their teams.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that this is all the stuff that I teach them, that then gives them the skill sets that they need.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And oftentimes, the mental shifts that they need to make to be able to influence others and work effectively with their teams.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So true, many entrepreneurs face setbacks that test the resilience.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you share an example of a challenge you've faced in how responsible influence either from yourself or others helped you overcome it?
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, so many failures.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think failure, I have this saying failure is a learning opportunity and like you just have to fail in order to learn and I've had a lot of successes, but the biggest, the biggest lessons came and actually as a result, the biggest successes came as a result of me failing.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like I think.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: One specific example that I can use is in hiring, hiring is another thing is like I think everybody struggles with it.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I was a really young leader, I had an amazing developer on my team.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was the star developer, but he was missing deadlines.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: acting like he owned the place and we tolerated it because he knew all the code.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was the like a lot of it was in his head and for me at the time I was in charge of him and I was trying to empower him and change him and help him and doing all the things and while I was doing that
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: a very influential CEO at the time.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he said, hey, if you don't deal with this situation, you know, the entire team might fall apart, right?
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because everyone else knows that this is happening and that you're favoring this one person.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And oh my gosh, it was so right.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was that advice.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not influence was so unpoint because I made the decision then to let go.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my team that day would have all quit, they told me afterwards, had I not done that?
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's so important.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think like we talk about influence, the importance of listening and be the ability not to influence not just to influence one way where you do it, but for others to be able to influence you and be able to listen to what it is that they're saying is so important.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, if you let ego in a way or all the other things as humans that we let get in a way, you know, that can affect our decisions and the paths that we take forward.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, so glad I listened at that moment.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a big, an expensive lesson, one that I also teach founders as well.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: like there should never be a one person responsible for everything and have nothing not of that documented in a way, you know, as a business, that's a big risk.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great story.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your work centers on helping non-technical founders succeed.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you break down complex concepts so that people not only understand but also feel empowered lead with confidence?
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we don't give people enough credit.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that the first thing that a lot of people say when they're not technical is, this is not for me.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't do this, I'm not technical, right?
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like no matter how simple you make something, if somebody has that mindset, they're not gonna learn.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I,
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I work with people lucky enough to work with people who already make the decision to I have to do something about this right so like I think that I have the magic ability to break down concepts in a way that is easy.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I have that as a result of me not actually growing up with technology, you know, as I was telling you like I turned on the computer for the very first time in my computer science class and I had to learn everything as an adult and I remember how hard it was how I always had this complex about like not being good enough not being technical enough plenty of technical people used to look down and talk down at me as I was growing in my career.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember like feeling that and I have so much empathy for a lot of not technical people.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, you know, if I'm not able to explain it to you in a way that you get it, I'll find it a different way.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll use analogies and so like I think that's what makes my story.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So interesting, like almost everything that happens to you brings you to the place where you need to help the right people.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think that has a lot to do with it and empathy is that is the thing.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like you have to feel someone's pain.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I watch their eyes if they don't get it, like I'm like, okay, so let me try a different way.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't automatically think like you're dumb.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not, it's not the the fact that you're not understanding is not your fault.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's my fault.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the mindset that I have that helps me, you know,
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great way to look at it.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: With AI becoming so mainstream and you're teaching it now and you're mentoring on it, many people are using it for just your basics, like clean up my, you know, I type this up, help me clean it up or help me come up with an outline.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are some unique ways that you're seeing, you know, business leaders use AI
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I talk about the concept of AI Latter that kind of breaks down the different ways that people use AI and the things that you mentioned with Chad to PT and cleaning stuff up and like the basics, that's at the bottom of the Latter and that's often a great start because if you use it effectively, you can have real productivity gains but from a business perspective and a human perspective
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The one thing that's going to help you is actually cut something completely or have someone else do it.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, someone else is AI.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for business specifically, I would recommend to look at automations, like smart AI automations, like automations existed for many years.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now with being
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, in the past, a human would have to evaluate the step and look at it to send it to the next step, but now you can have AI and prompting like a few are an effective prompter do that for you.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you can.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: create really complex workflows of something that you're doing on a daily basis and outsource that to AI, of course you have to check it, right?
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not perfect, but you basically have 80% of the work done for you and get it to you.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is the big cost savings, right?
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: where you can completely have, that's like a digital teammate, right?
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you tell it to like a scheduling tool, is an AI agent where you just tell it, hey, if someone wants to schedule a meeting, here are the tools that you can use, and then all of the decisions, if you see, you know, missing information, you can ask for it, and all of that interaction happens, there's no setting up of the workflow.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So AI agents is another thing that I,
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So businesses to look at as an efficiency gain.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think between those two, the beauty is incentivizing software.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then changing your workflow to work with that software, you can now have an opportunity to define everything you're doing exactly as you're doing it.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: and then create an automation that helps you get that task done a lot faster or completely, like, without human intervention.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, that's the big unlock, I think, in AI that a lot of people are not looking at, that I call it strategic AI use.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's really smart, I love that.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you give us an example of a process that you've seen AI built to use?
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, lots of them.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So anything like client onboarding, let's say you are onboarding clients, you have a process of how you do that.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a very manual process, right?
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes, like if you do this work as a fractional person, I onboard clients, I send them contract, I send them document, I send them like we set up,
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: a special work area, like all of that, the entire process of onboarding can be done by a workflow automation.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not gonna be wrong.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, it's, it can be done.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: If my client does it at 2 a.m. because they were up at night and they couldn't sleep and they filled out the form to start the process, that's the trigger point, right?
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then that immediately happens automatically, while I'm sleeping.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: right and so that's like this is an example of something that I think a lot of people do.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can do leads automations, you can do lead enrichments in sales, you can do a lot of research that is you know pretty much everything that you're doing.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can decide hey can AI do this for me instead and yeah I think like literally everything.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a workful automation, do you have a tool that you recommend an AI program?
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Zapier.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure a lot of people have heard of Zapier.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the most friendliest,
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: What kind of like at the bottom of the total, but it's, I like make.com a little bit better because it gives you a lot more options, but Zapier is one that a lot of people use already and if you can strategically think about, okay, I used to have automations with Zapier, but how can I now use AI with it, you know, it's a tool that you're already using that's what I would recommend like if you're already using Zapier there's.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of ways that you can use AI already with that tool.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't use up here, I would recommend starting with make.com.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit more, you can do a lot more things with it.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So those are the tools that I would recommend as a starting point.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But one thing I'll mention is that a lot of people try to implement AI before they're ready for the automation part, because if you don't have a system or if you have a chaotic system or non-existent system, you can't create an automation.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So first, you need to create the system.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this app, I call it process mapping.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you can strategically say, hey, I can use AI here and here and here and then you have to do also cost calculations right because you can use AI doesn't necessarily mean that it's makes sense because maybe it's too expensive or whatever right like so you then make a strategic decision off where you're going to use AI and then you go and implement it so don't jump into the implementation first.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is great advice, Nelly.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: What message or words have been encouragement, would you like to share with our listeners who aspired to make a positive difference in the world, whether in technology, business, or personal influence?
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think just take action, I think so many people have ideas of how they can be influential or make an impact or they have so many ideas but without action nothing happens and so many people are afraid.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, if I'm doing this and I like going in and I like I really want to doing this like this is my calling, but they are afraid to make the change right maybe there's a smaller way you can do that to start it to dip your toes into it wet your toes in a little bit deeper right and then.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: take the full punch.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think action taking action is the most important thing in life and business.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if you have an idea, if you have a thought of doing something and it's not in your comfort level, like in technology, you know, it is possible to learn it.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So stop saying, I can't, it's not for me, you know, just figure out who I need to work with if you need to.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: What resources do I need and there's just so much out there now free and inexpensive that you can just just take an action take the first step.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's great advice.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So my website techspeak.co that has both my trainings on anyone who wants to build a tech product and your non-technical entrepreneur lots of resources there for that.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are starting also in AI cohort.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: For people who want to learn automations and AI agents, we're kicking off our first cohort in January, so feel free to check that out.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing a lot of free classes and on social media.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I put out a lot of content so just go and start learning.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll link to all that in the show notes for you.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nelly, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your insights with us today.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your passion for teaching and your commitments of helping others embrace technology with confidence and responsibility is such a powerful example of positive influence and action.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful you're able to join us today.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: For listeners, remember your influence matters, whether it's guiding a team, sharing knowledge, or encouraging someone to take their next step, keep leaning into that influence, using it responsibly and watch a ripple effects it creates.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: If today's episode inspired you, please share it with your family, friends, and co-workers and consider adding daily influence to your daily routine.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And whether it's during your commute, a walk, or a quiet moment, it's your daily dose of positivity.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, the power to make a difference begins with you.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your ideas, your choices, and your actions.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.