Marketing Happy Hour - Career Strategy: Relationships as a Vehicle for Success | Stephanie Lawrence of Nextdoor

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

The POSSIBLE 2025 conference series continues with Stephanie Lawrence-Shartrand from Nextdoor. With over 20 years of experience in digital media, strategy, and customer success, Stephanie is a passionate leader and advocate for the power of online communities and social networks. Stephanie joins Ally and I to share her strategies for building strong, lasting professional relationships, including how she’s created her own personal Board of Advisors. Key Takeaways:// Build your own personal Board of Advisors. Made up of your best friends, past coworkers and mentors – these are the people you gut check career moves with, ask for help navigating difficult situations and help elevate your skill set.// Relationships require persistence and thriving in the uncomfortable. If you only reach out when you want something, people remember that. People will remember how you made them feel.// Don’t undersell the value of in person connection and conversation opportunities – whether it be a 5 minute check-in or 30 minute coffee chat.// Professional confidence comes from believing in yourself and channeling your insecurities into opportunities for growth. Connect with Stephanie: LinkedInFollow along with Nextdoor: Website / InstagramConnect with Ally: LinkedIn / Instagram____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

I would be lying to you if I said that I always walked around with this level of confidence. I think it again just goes back into believing yourself. You did not get into this role because someone handed it to you. You worked hard to get here. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host. Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics, from crafting effective marketing strategies

and hitting career goals, to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. So today on our possible series that we've been doing, Allie and I are sitting here with Stephanie Lawrence,

head of agency development at Nextdoor. We met Stephanie at Possible physically, which was such a treat. And just got to chat a little bit about what we're gonna dive into more today. But Stephanie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.

I am so stoked about this. We're huge fans of yours. We just have to say. And so just getting to chat more with you, we're honored. So. Oh my gosh. I hope I don't disappoint.

No, you're great. We had the chance gosh. I hope I don't disappoint. No, you're great. We had the chance to see you on some panels as well. And so got a little bit of a taste of what we're going to talk about today. But first, Stephanie, we have to ask you, what has been in your glass lately? It is always a botanist martini up with a twist. I am a gin martini girl. 24 7 365. Okay. I don't think I've ever had that before. I am.

Oh! I mean, I should do that. Well, the next time I see you... Oh, yes. We will have to do that. So yeah, I don't do it dirty. It's dry. It is... I mean, it's not for the faint of heart. So if this is your introductory martini, I might have you do like a little dirty vodka one and then we'll get you there. Okay.

Okay. I love it. We will do that when we see you next. Yes. Beautiful. It's a date. I love it. Awesome.

So Stephanie, we're going to start off a little bit on the career journey front. So we're curious, can you share a little bit about your career journey and then what brought you to Nextdoor? Oh yeah, so the quick and dirty of this is that I started out my career on the agency side. So I was on the medium buying planning side of the house. So I worked on accounts like Macy's, Procter & Gamble, and it was my work on Procter & Gamble

that got me sort of found by Microsoft because I worked very closely with them. And that was my first foray into sales about 14 years ago. You guys are going to make me date myself. So I left and did a couple of sales jobs through the likes of Viacom and Pinterest. And then a girlfriend of mine was at Nextdoor. She loved it. She was like, the people are amazing.

I think you should talk to now my boss, Michael Kiernan, and see if we can get you into Nextdoor. So I started out as a seller there. So I was running CPG to build out that practice. And then I had heard that they were looking to build out the agency development team. And I raised my hand and I said, I want this, I want this, I want it. So they didn't just give it to me. I had to interview for it and I was up against a couple of heavy hitters from some other well-known companies.

But I persevered and here I am. And so we are now a team of four, four but, you know, mighty folks running the agency team. And we're real excited. So tell us a little bit about what you all do just at Nextdoor in general, and then your team specifically, how do you guys kind of go about your day to day? What's your goal and stuff?

Yeah, so at Nextdoor, obviously we are the neighborhood app. We are all about your community. So if you are not on Nextdoor, I we are the neighborhood app. We are all about your community. So if you are not on Nextdoor, I highly recommend you join. So we pretty much say that people come for the utility but stay for the community. So we're very different from other social media platforms

where you are all about your selfie, scrolling, and looking for things. You pretty much are coming to Nextdoor to get things done. So I moved to Philadelphia, for example, a couple of months back, and it was Nextdoor where I went to first to ask my neighbors, where's the closest dry cleaner to us?

Where can I go and take my dog to daycare? And neighbors you will find are so quick and ready to help out. In fact, 76% of the content on Nextdoor is neighbor recommendations. So it's about, you know, just feeling good about the neighborhoods that you live in and making sure that it's a thriving bustling place

because we all chose to move here, right? So we're all in this together. In terms of my team, so my team, for the past three years, we've pretty much been focusing on holding codes and developing the relationship there. So we're a shadow organization of the sales team. So anything my team does is rooted in bringing revenue to Nextdoor, right?

At the end of the day, it's all about bringing money to Nextdoor. So my team has been evangelists for Nextdoor at the agency. Because all of our ads are really endemic, we found that a lot of agencies didn't even know that we had ads on the platform, which I guess is kudos to us, but does it help us to our bottom line if people don't know that they can actually buy ads with us? So we've been evangelists, we've been connectors, we're doing lunch and learns,

we're brokering larger partnership deals. So we're doing all of those things, you know, in the spirit of supporting our sales team. Yeah, excellent. Thank you for sharing that insight just as we get deeper into kind of what you specifically do. So what you're doing is kind of this extension of the overall team. So I'm just curious, you know, what are the ways in which you've been able to lead and teach your team

to close those deals? That obviously, the way that you're closing deals could be a different objective of a team listening, for example, but what are just some of those different elements that go into that sales hat that you're putting on as a part of your role? Oh, 100%. There are so many similarities. Again, I don't know every single person within every single agency. So sometimes you have to do the uncomfortable, which is

reaching out to people that you do not know, and try to sell them into something that they may not want, or do you not even know that they want. So there's that muscle that needs to flex. There's also just setting a strategy, right? Like how are we going to approach this agency? So just laying down, you know, your key account hit list, what makes the most sense for next door. We also need to work very well with our cross-functional partners internally, just to make sure everyone's looped in. We don't want to step on toes with our sales friends.

We're all in this together. If the sales team doesn't make money, I always joke, I don't make money. So guys, we are all in this together, one team, one dream. And I think again, just leaning into the sales-ness of it all, like, you know, people always feel like, I don't wanna come off like a used car salesman or I don't wanna be too salesy, but guess what?

How else are you going to sell something unless you were salesy? So I think it's just being your authentic self and not worrying about, you know, overselling. Like the way I'm talking to you both right now is how I speak to clients. So I don't deviate pretty much from who you see right now on the screen.

Be yourself. Yeah. It's so important to just have that organic nature in conversations moving forward on the partnership side. And so on the trend side, I kind of want to pivot a little bit. What trends are you seeing right now in advertising and how can brands leverage them to grow? Have you guys heard about AI? I don't know if it's chemo. Never. Have you guys heard about AI? I don't know if it's come up in any of your conversations, but it's come up quite a bit

in like one or two of mine. So I think it's definitely leveraging AI in a way. Like everyone says, it's not going to take your job. It's going to be the people that are smart enough to figure out how to use it the right way. Right? So even when my team goes out and market, I'm just like, go to Perplexity AI and quickly type in to the company, what are their values?

What are their key, what are their CMOs, ALS week and crystallize it for me in five bullets. Right? You can do this in the taxi on your way to the meeting and just be the smartest person in the room because you understand their business. So I think it's just first and foremost, just being smarter about how you show up in the room and even just quicker in how you get your work done. I actually did it most recently for a QBR internally that I had to build and I had tons and tons and reams of data. I was like, hey, hold on please, put it into Google Sheets, ask Gemini to crystallize it of data. I was like, hey, hold on, please. Put it into Google Sheets. Asked Gemini to crystallize it for me.

I was like, that actually is spot on. Couple of tweaks. Made it my own a little bit. And what would have taken me probably five to six hours to do took me an hour. So I think it's just being smart about that. I think we are also still always hearing about brand safety. Brand safety is a trend that will not die and it shouldn't.

I think everyone wants their ads to run up against non-questionable content. So just again, making sure, you know, like Nextdoor, for example, we partner with IAS and DoubleVerify to make sure that our partner's ads are running safely. So I think that's always something that's on the forefront too. I think that's it. I think those are the ones. I know. I was just going to ask, is there anything else that you're thinking about just future forward? Or even with AI, is there any other ways that your brand is looking to leverage AI, whether it's an internal sense, an external output sense, or walking into the big thing right now. Yeah. So we are working on the new Nextdoor. So again, if you're not on it, it is all going

to be changing very quickly. So in that, we're even using AI to even crystallize the conversations that are happening on the platform. So you can just go in there real quick and know what your neighbors are talking about really quickly with what are the hot topics that are happening near me in Philly? And it could even be down to a new restaurant that's opening up or a street festival that's happening this weekend or like, Oh God, there's this weather storm coming. Everyone battened down the hatches. So like you'll, you'll just be like on the pulse, can get in, get out, see what's happening and keep it moving. We also use AI, you know, in terms of just making sure when you post, we can help our neighbors post in a more effective

way. Yes, we use it to say, you know, maybe someone's posting something that could be a little spicy. And we will come up with a little reminder to say like, you may not want to say that there's a better way to say it through AI. Or, Cassie, you might be having a yard sale this weekend, and you want to post about it, and we're gonna help you put it out in the right way to market to your neighbors. So we're using it in multiple ways. Very, very cool.

We're gonna pivot a little bit now and just talk about something we're all really passionate about and something we spoke about at Possible specifically, which is relationships. Just how the three of us are really passionate about relationship building, both with internal and external partners.

And you work a lot with CMOs and other leaders. And so what are the ways in which you're managing and growing your professional relationships at this stage in your career? I would say that, and it's something that I've gotten more comfortable with as I've grown in my career, is just reaching out and staying in touch and asking again, being uncomfortable, asking for a meeting.

Hey, we haven't talked in six months. Can we get a cup of coffee? I think even knowing that these people are so busy, saying even 15 minutes versus saying, can I have 30? Like it'll be 15. I'll bring you a cup of coffee. I'll even walk with you around the corner from Starbucks to the office and you could be on your merry way.

So I think just, you know, not being afraid to ask for that quick touch base. I also try to do things that'll make everyone's life a little bit easier. So if I see something in the press that I think they, they may have missed because they're the busiest humans on the planet, you ship it their way. And I'm not asking for anything in return. I'm not asking for a meeting. It's just again,

spirit of partnership, or maybe we're not even partners yet, but I'm just saying something that makes sense for you. I think if you only reach out when you want something, people remember that, right? I think if you, again, almost like next door, promote yourself as something that's useful, people will remember that. Right? So I think I said this on a panel the other day too. People remember how you made them feel, right? And they're not gonna remember what you gave them.

So if you give them a sense of like, okay, she's a trusted partner and she's someone that I can rely on, I think that's how I've been growing my relationships thus far. Yeah. I wanna just's how I've been growing my relationships thus far. Yeah. I want to just piggyback off of that too. Another thing that you said on the panel tying in relationships is having your personal board of advisors. I thought this was a fantastic, just like it was so simple and straightforward, but I'm like, I've never heard it put that

way before. Can you explain a little bit about that and kind of what you meant and how you've built your own personal board over the years? Yeah, I mean, it's your best friends. It's the, so again, I came up in the agency world. For anyone who's been like me, who did it a thousand years ago, those were the days when you work from 8 a.m. till midnight and they were in the trenches with you. So these people are either still at the agency

and or like me, doing agency development roles, which is actually quite a fun. There's probably like nine of us now doing the same job at different social companies. But like those are the people that I reach out to if I'm going to take a new career job, or if I'm, even if I'm like, what do I do next, sit next door? Like how can I build out my agency team?

I have a group thread. I have probably three different ones, one with my ladies, one with the folks I went, I worked with on the agency side. So it's just like your own small group of folks that are your cheerleaders, your rah rahs, and also we'll give it to you straight. I've personally taken that advice already and really tried to frame that board of advisors and board of directors for myself.

So thank you for that. No, of course. And I think it's all about still fostering those relationships. I think so many of us, myself included, only until recently, you just don't ask for help. And these are your friends. Like who else better to ask for help?

I'll never forget my girlfriend Yolanda, I always give her, is in everything I do because she's my best friend and also everything. But even when I wanted to get this job, she said, reach out to our women's group and have them all write a reference for you. And I was like, I don't know. She's like, you have to, you have to. She's like, half of them are agency leadership. Are you crazy? And I was like, small font, can you guys help me? And the letters just came pouring through. You know, like, but I did it and here I am, here I sit.

I know, I know. We feel so icky doing that. I know. Why are you saying it? I just don't know. We have to get over it. I know, we have to. Right?

It's moving through that uncomfortable feeling, I think, and really putting yourself out there. And right now it's an incredibly competitive job market. So I'm curious what advice you have for the next generation of leaders, and what are those things that they can do to really differentiate themselves in this job market? You know, I think it goes back to what we've been saying. If you don't ask, you don't get. I can't even tell you. My LinkedIn, if I turned it goes back to what we've been saying. If you don't ask, you don't get, I can't even tell you my LinkedIn, if I turned it on right now, there's probably 15 people who I probably spoke to one time 16,000 years ago who were reaching out to me for support. And guess

what? I've never said no. I've never said no. So I'm like, sure. Like I'll send a note. I mean, I get to it today. I'll get to it eventually. So I think it's just putting yourself out there in the best way. Now I've also had people who have just been like, can you give me help on this agency? And I'm like, you got to give me more. Like I'm not here to do your job for you. Give me like a real clear, concise ask and then I can lean in. But if I've got a spoon feed you for the support that you need from me? No one has time for that either. So I think it's, you know, still tapping into your network, asking for help where you can. And then again, just showing up in the best,

do your homework, ask the right questions. Again, if we're leading into the AI of it all, there is no reason to show up unprepared to anything anymore. Like with no agenda, you've got to be crazy. So it's just like come prepared and just ask the right questions. Mm-hmm.

Are there, kind of extending off of that, are there any hard or soft skills too that you're really leaning into as you're bringing team members in or things that really stand out to you just with talent and things that you'd say, hey, whoever's listening, making sure that you're developing and growing in these areas. See people in real life again, please.

Because everything you do, and listen, it's easy. I love to be in my pajamas, you know, business on top, pajamas, slippers on the bottom. I have slippers on now. We all love that. But just even think about the conversations that happen when you're walking from a conference room or from the elevator to the room. That's when you can even have the, how was your weekend? But when it's transactional, when it starts at three and ends at three 30, it's on and

you're off. Right? And we can all say now that we're back in real life or being it possible. Right? We got to sit down and got to fall in love with each other over like a quick 10 minute conversation. So this is an awkward when we're on the screen together. So I think just the simplest thing I can say is like, try to have that cup of coffee, try

to come to meet people where they are. So you can fall into those relationships. I think we've moved away from relationship selling and I think there is a part of that that still is great, which is how, again, I'm in this seat because I built relationships 20 years ago with these people who still remember me. Right. Right?

You don't really remember people when it's just like, boop, boop. No. Unless I have a crazy hat or a cool shirt, but other than that, there's nothing else. Absolutely. So, okay, so extending this career conversation, tying it all together,

one question that we love to ask on the show, it's a loaded one, but I'm curious what you're gonna say to this, but what do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? Is there anything that comes to mind there? Aside from buying Google stock, I am... Literally.

Right? Go back like, girl, buy that stock. You done. You'll be retired. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say from a personal standpoint, it would just be to believe in yourself. You know more than you think you know. So I think a lot of us suffer in silence and, and, or, and, or just don't speak up because

we feel like, you know, maybe you're sitting at the kitty table and there's a whole bunch of C-suite and you're the media planner in the room. But you know, you're the person who actually built the campaign from beginning to end. You probably know more than everybody else in the room. And also, how many times have we also seen people on panels and we've been like, well, I could have done that. You know, there was nothing like groundbreaking or earthshatter that happened in that conversation. So I would just say, believe believing yourself. I would go back into the in real life, definitely have the in real life conversations. I would say reading the room appropriately

is also a good one. I show up the way I show up. And I think I also know when to dial it back. I do love to crack a joke, as you've seen me do or do like a funny face. But like, you know, Proctor and Gamble, for example, were very straight. So I knew when to show up like this when I needed to, and I knew when I could, you know, bring it down and be like fun chick if I needed to be. So I think just knowing how to read the room is also very important. I think those are my main things. I think, again, I would just say foster every and all relationships. Keep your friends close.

You switch jobs. Stay in touch with those people from your old job. You never know where they're going to show up again. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So one last question off of what you said earlier. Confidence building.

So of course, young professionals nowadays, we could go into this whole dissertation of social media and just this imposter syndrome And all this stuff that we're all feeling so How do you go about building confidence in order to step into those conversations in those situations with confidence? You know any advice for fostering that I'm sure I would imagine you'd agree with me that having those people around you, that personal board of advisors who are positive influences and encouraging words into you and things like that. But what do you think has helped contribute to this confidence that you feel today in your career? I mean, listen, I would be lying to you if I said that I always walked around with this

level of confidence. I will truthfully say I probably stepped into this maybe 10 years ago. I think it again just goes back into believing yourself and knowing you did not get into this role because someone handed it to you. You worked hard to get here, right? So none of us are gifted anything in this life. So you worked really hard to get here. So still just believe in the fact that you were chosen to do this job because you are

strong, you are skilled, you are strategic, you are smart. And I still have to remind myself of that. I mean, who among us doesn't walk into a room and like, there's some heavy hitters in here? And like, what am I gonna say? How do I show up? What do I, you know, I mean, we all feel that. And listen, you may say something stupid. Who among us hasn't? Who hasn't? And guess what, you'll still put your pants on your shoes the same way those people do, and you just

have to remember that. I love the head nods. Yes. Right? But I mean, there's always going to be those days of insecurities. I mean, listen, I'm going to Cannes in two weeks. There is absolutely going to be a room I walk into where I'm going to feel like I'm the lowest woman on the totem pole and I'm just gonna have to

go back and just do it. Just gotta pull it together. Put on a smile and do it. There were a couple of spaces at Possible where I definitely felt that and really had to take take a moment, take some deep breaths and be like you know this is also an opportunity to connect with these heavy hitters right? It's not just me sort of feeling insecure but how can I channel that into making it more of an opportunity, right? I love that. And even the deep, I mean, it sounds corny, but it is the deep breaths of it all. Like I've had to do that where I'm like, okay, let me, you know, what do they say? What was that thing they taught us to do when you're pitching? Oh, like the Superman pose.

Yes. Like, and like do all these big things to like then bring it in. It kind of works. Yeah. Like go to the bathroom and like, I have a girlfriend who will go to the bathroom and like talk to herself in the mirror and be like, you are smart and you were all,

I was like, okay, that's a lot for me, but if that works for you. It seriously works. No, I, even I will say like, I used to be terrified of public speaking and I kid you not like the deep breaths and like talking to myself. That's it.

Like that's all I and it's helped. I mean, I'm not perfect with confidence by any means, but like it's definitely helped quite a bit. So isn't it funny how we all feel that way? And the fact that you just said that and you said that that you were intimidated. I'd be like, really? Like I would never believe that because you both, when we met for the first time,

showed up with all the confidence in the world, right? So we all have it in us. Yes. Right? And I think we actually, we should all help ourselves by knowing that probably that big muckety muck has it in them too. Yes, it's important to remember that.

Yes. Right? Absolutely, absolutely. Stephanie, this has been amazing. We have to know as we close out, how can we stay in touch with you personally and also with Nextdoor? Where can we learn more just about what you guys are working on, what you offer, et cetera, to all of us? I mean, did you want my phone number? I'm kidding. Obviously, I'm on LinkedIn. It's Stephanie Lawrence. I'm actually hyphen chartrand.

So my husband's last name, so I'm Stephanie Lawrence, chartrand. If you want to find out about Nextdoor, you could go to business.nextdoor.com or just nextdoor.com or download the app and get on it and sign in through your neighborhood and learn more about your community. But yeah, I'm also on Instagram, one of my I Love Shoes, on Course 72.

Don't judge me. It was like, the year was 2005 when I did it. Oh my gosh. And I never changed it. But yeah, that's where I'm at. I love it. Amazing. We'll have everything linked below as well, just for a quick, easy reference.

Stephanie, thank you again so much for being here. We're very stoked to stay in touch with you, to hopefully connect in person again here soon. Please. Pretty possible, hopefully. But thank you again so much. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you, Stephanie.

I loved this. Hope to see you both in Miami soon. Yes. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future Marketing Happy Hour episode, shoot me an email.

Hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.