Episode 14 – Building Global Teams: A Guide to Near Shoring and Outsourcing Success

(0:00) Hey guys, thanks for joining the boost today. We’re at geekdom (0:03) We’re gonna be talking about some startup week near shoring and some of the other exciting things that we’ve got coming. My name is Leon (0:18) Amazing (0:19) Where do we want to start or where do you want to start? I mean geekdom startup week, you know (0:24) That’s gonna be that’s gonna be a big deal.

It’s October (0:28) 17th I believe 14th through 18th. I believe 18th. Okay, Monday through Friday.

Oh, it’s a whole week. Yes (0:33) It’s a full the full full week and we’ll be there (0:38) You’ve got a talk about near shoring. I did have a talk about near shoring and (0:43) The over 20 years of experience that I’ve been doing it.

So kind of a long time (0:48) It’s evolved a lot. It has evolved a lot and you know now it seems that there’s a lot of more activity around near shoring (0:55) So, you know, it’s a it’s pretty exciting (0:57) I’m I’m actually glad to be able to speak to an audience and not just a client about it (1:02) You know like and now it’s actually like okay people are using this to actually grow their businesses (1:05) Yes, and I think you know, the conversations that we’ve had is more businesses are picking up (1:13) Outsourcing and (1:15) one of the considerations especially in a text market like this is Spanish is a big plus and (1:21) Then time zones, I think so we do a lot of hiring in the Philippines (1:26) we’ve got a ton of staff there, but I think near shoring is become becoming the term but (1:31) You want to explain the difference like near shore offshore overseas? Like it’s just about proximity (1:37) Related to time zones mostly, you know people think it’s just about the you know (1:41) The proximity of the country which it is but it’s about time zone (1:44) So really the biggest issue is is that when you’re hiring from Europe? (1:48) You’re hiring from the Philippines or Asia in general (1:52) It adds a lot of stress to the process of production (1:55) Because you know look I mean working with the team in the Philippines, you know (2:00) You roughly have what a three to five year window with any resource that you’re working with because I mean think about it (2:06) If you had to get up every single day, you know and work from you know, 8 p.m. To 5 a.m. As an example (2:14) Would that be conducive to you over the long haul? (2:17) You know if you have a family if you’re you know (2:19) Obviously, there’s a lot of stressors that just simply getting around daily life and working those kinds of hours (2:26) It’s very very hard. So that means that for every one resource that you have during (2:30) You know those types of hours.

You’re gonna have to bring in a second resource to kind of you know (2:37) Offset the stress on that one person (2:40) You got sickness too, and that’s a that’s a really big one working at night (2:44) So you end up getting sick a lot and take off so you do have to have two people at all times and then (2:49) To your point five years probably the time horizon before they either start asking for daytime hours (2:57) Right, and if you know if you can build out a team well enough (3:00) you could do some people all day some people at night and have a 24-hour operation, but (3:06) It’s it’s something that’s hard because you have to manage them (3:09) And if you don’t have somebody that can be there in person (3:13) It’s it’s a really difficult thing to let somebody and trust somebody to work completely opposite hours (3:18) leave you notes and try to like interpret things or get QA because then you have to hand it somebody else or (3:27) You end up doing it yourself, which right as a stressor and then you know build resentment towards that employee where you’re just like (3:35) I’m not a fan of this person because he always leaves me stuff to finish right? (3:39) I mean look the default and what everyone talks about especially in more recent years is you know, oh just go to Fiverr (3:45) It’s easy, right, you know Fiverr may be a solid solution for one project (3:50) Maybe two projects, but you have to remember that you are effectively filling time for that resource (3:57) If someone else is willing to come in and fill more time (4:00) they’re gonna tell you to kick rocks, you know, because they’re getting paid more and for a longer period of time and (4:06) Look, I mean at the end of the day if you’re not training that resource (4:10) They come with all of the you know skill sets that they develop before you came along (4:16) And bad habits and bad habits (4:18) that’s right and then if you’re trying to get them to work in a very specific way and a very targeted fashion if you have a (4:25) culture of (4:26) Efficiency and everything has to be done like by the letter and you have a large, you know (4:32) Stack of SOPs, you know standard operating procedures and you expect that resource to follow those, you know, good luck (4:39) it’s very difficult, especially if you just hand them a document and say hey, here’s the process without (4:45) going through it and (4:47) You there is always a level of training for everybody, you know (4:50) Just like if you start a new job today your first week’s training sure same thing with an overseas resource (4:56) it might be a little bit longer because you’re giving them a lot more control or you’re you’re (5:00) You’re making sure that they follow a specific process (5:04) but (5:06) you have to make sure that that that’s set out and I think so what I’m trying to say is a (5:12) Lot of people don’t have those (5:14) SOPs built out so they’re telling somebody for the first time to do something and then build on top of it (5:20) You know, like a lot of what we do is I love to do this. I report a loom (5:24) Myself doing it (5:26) Hopefully well enough that somebody can follow along they make a document and that becomes it (5:30) they also trust that you can do it and then you’ve got a process every time after and (5:36) it’s it’s efficient and easy then but (5:40) That first, you know, it’s the 90-day window for any employee any contractor that first three months (5:47) Are they adding value? (5:49) Probably not and to your point (5:52) If it’s just a project you’re gonna do, you know build me a website (5:55) It’s an easy thing to do one time one off (5:57) But if you want to do say hey, I want you to run my social media. I want you to become our email support (6:03) I want you to you know, deal with our leads manage our CRM like any of those things where they become (6:10) executive assistants or something in the manner of (6:13) They’re doing yes process managers (6:16) and I think a lot of what every business owner should do is get out of the weeds and give that off like, you know, (6:23) Business owner doesn’t have to answer every single phone call.

They could you know outsource that I’ve seen (6:28) Full on like self storage spots have a screen you walk in the persons in the Philippines that you know (6:35) They check in they do all that stuff. Maybe there’s somebody there (6:38) Real but a lot of times everything’s automated and virtual. Yeah, and you can save so much money compared to an American employee there (6:45) Yeah, yeah, there might be some benefits to it, but you’re gonna save thousands of dollars (6:50) but one thing that I’ve always said and I know you’ve heard me say this a million times and that is like (6:56) If you’re gonna save money (6:59) Then you have to make sure to understand that you will invest that in time, right? (7:04) That doesn’t mean that it’s just like oh, okay.

This is gonna be simple (7:07) I’m gonna save money and I’ve just won the lottery. It doesn’t work that way, you know (7:11) You’re going to have to build out the process. I mean we’ve built out our own teams (7:15) Right.

I mean our own teams are built out in Asia Latin America and obviously here domestically in the States (7:21) But if you don’t build out those teams (7:24) You’re going to expect (7:26) Beneficiency, right and that’s something that you know (7:31) Takes a while to get over and if you have clients, you know (7:34) And you’re trying to make sure that you’re doing things by the book with those clients (7:38) You don’t want to make yourself look bad. You don’t want the clients to get upset with you (7:41) You know if you’re not doing those things (7:44) Yeah, that’s another thing you can expect is that you might lose a client, you know, or more than one client (7:49) You know or a lot of customers bad reviews. There’s a lot of risk (7:54) There is a lot of risk outside and it’s no different than any other employee (7:57) but there is a (8:01) Just the cultural differences.

There is a little bit more pressure because you have that fear of not not being (8:08) Correct or looking, you know being embarrassed of like this is the work that you did because sometimes a lot especially if you’re a service-based (8:15) person (8:16) You might be portraying it as yourself. That’s right, or the person’s gonna think it was your fault. No matter what so yeah (8:24) Bubbles up to the top for sure.

So (8:28) You know, we’ve built the teams. We’ve done it over. We’ve got a partner that’s in country (8:32) I think that’s also important part is our partner is in these countries building (8:37) He was in the Philippines for about a part of three years building teams out.

He’s now allowed in America building teams out and (8:46) Understanding the culture. I think that’s an important part having a partner that tells you, you know (8:51) Hey, this is very common in Latin cultures. This is very common in a you know, a Southeast Asian culture (8:57) Because if you don’t understand like why they’re saying yes, sir, or you know, like they address you in a formal manner (9:04) You might you know think it’s fine or you might be okay with it, but there’s also a you know a hierarchy system (9:10) They might not want to bring things to you because they’re like, oh, you’re the big boss.

I can’t bring problems (9:16) so same thing in Latin America, there’s you know, there’s (9:19) Holidays like you have to have somebody that helps you navigate that because I think if we try to do it (9:25) You know initially right out of the gate like if we had no experience and I had to start over (9:30) We would struggle with that because that’s what people struggle with on fiber, right? Oh, hey, you know, we hired somebody in Pakistan (9:37) Oh my gosh, there’s like a holiday every every week in some capacity, you know (9:42) Like it’s no different than the United States, but there is a lot of holidays and you just they don’t align with our holidays (9:48) So it’s a conversation of you know, what is going on? (9:52) How do you manage this person and you have to do it? (9:55) You know like no different in the United States if somebody working in New York is a very different person that’s working in st (10:02) Louis that’s working in San Francisco or San Antonio (10:07) they’re all different styles like yeah, you know, New York has a (10:10) Fast pace, you know, like a lot of the environment is very I don’t care about your feelings. Yeah, just turn it over (10:17) Francisco you had a culture that was more or less like beer and fun and but you were expected to work (10:24) You know 12 14 hours a day because you were in that office, right, you know in the Midwest like it might be a different thing (10:29) There’s more family, especially in San Antonio. It’s more family oriented.

Yeah, so you have to contend with those things same thing internationally (10:35) Yeah, I mean you mentioned culture and the one thing that has saved me (10:40) countless times (10:42) Is just the fact that a multilingual and you know (10:46) Ray’s speaking Spanish and then working with people that are Spanish speaking. I’m not trying to say my Spanish is like, you know (10:52) Perfect, you know, there’s technical terms that I forget all the time (10:55) I have to learn new terms, but I can communicate to at least make myself understood be understood (11:03) and (11:03) you know what I’ve noted is that (11:05) The other parts of the culture is also just the flow of how work is expected, right? (11:12) So if I say to you, hey, I’m gonna turn something over on I’ll hand it to you by Monday (11:18) In my mind in Latin America (11:20) I’m gonna have a whole day Monday to work on it to turn it in by the end of the day in my mind (11:24) I’m like, I’m gonna get it 8 a.m. On Monday. Yeah first thing (11:29) Doors open and they’re in the same thing in the Philippines (11:32) Like if you say that you leave a very big margin of error, like what is what is there? (11:37) You know, what is there Monday also, you know (11:39) Yeah, and and that’s why I think a really valuable part of Latin America.

You have that same time zone (11:45) So when you say it’s Monday (11:47) There’s no confusion if it’s their Monday our Monday like what time it’s a it’s Monday and then you know (11:55) The nuances and it’s by Monday by 2 p.m. And it has to be QA and good to go. Not just (12:01) Yeah, not just a hey, here’s it can give us some feedback (12:04) I think being very explicit and this is just like a managerial thing and (12:08) Overall being explicit in your instructions. Yeah, this needs to be delivered this day at this time (12:14) With this expectation of it will be done in this way, right? (12:18) And the thing is is these rules are also not just for startups (12:22) These are rules that apply to fortune 500 companies a funny story when I first started doing this in my career (12:27) I worked with Citigroup.

I was living in Milan, Italy (12:31) So I was working with Italians that were speaking English, right? So it wasn’t even their first language (12:36) We were using development resources that were Indian (12:40) Okay, and (12:41) There and then, you know, my senior managers were in the u.s (12:46) Yeah, so when we had to communicate all as one team (12:51) We were all for the most part speaking English as a second language (12:56) But the leaders were English as a first language (12:59) So you want to talk about oh and not only that but the delays on phone calls and back (13:04) This is now 20 some odd years ago. So there was a really really long latency on phone calls (13:09) So when you’re trying to like, you know, talk to somebody make a point talking over each other. It’s it was a comedy (13:16) And of course, I’m you know sitting in Milan, Italy like (13:20) In the middle of it all very different from being just in the u.s. Working (13:25) internationally with with with resources being (13:28) international, you know from the u.s. And (13:31) Seeing the the kind of the relationship between all of these different continents working on a project together (13:38) You know made me really appreciate this as like an actual career, you know (13:43) And and that’s something that most people just think oh, yeah, like I said earlier, you know, just just hire it out (13:48) It’ll be fine.

No (13:50) The other thing too is look infrastructure, you know, like we take our you know, our internet for granted, right? (13:57) You know, we get power outages every once in a blue moon, you know related to you know (14:02) You know electric electric surges because of everyone using air conditioning in the summertime, you know (14:07) That could happen or storms or things like that, but our power comes back relatively quickly, you know (14:14) in (14:14) Southeast Asia for example when they have a typhoon (14:17) That power could be out for days and not only that they have brownouts or you know in in American terms blackouts (14:24) Yeah, and they’re consistent. They’re like hey between this hour and this hour (14:28) They’re doing upgrades and this is happening same thing in Colombia. There’s (14:32) Points where hey between the hours and six and midnight, there’s not going to be any power (14:39) while you know a lot of Latin countries have fiber their fiber still a little iffy because they have one line in or (14:46) There’s one spot.

That’s like at the junction and you know car crash somebody messing with it. So you you have that and I think (14:54) Latin America is much more stable. They’re (14:57) They’re close to the equator.

You have less storms. You don’t really have typhoons. You don’t really have hurricanes too much (15:02) there’s you know mud landslides mudslides like normal storms, but (15:08) overall, I feel like there’s a (15:10) Better consistency because in the Philippines you have typhoons you have earthquakes you have fires.

You have everything and (15:19) You just never know like, you know, you know typhoon season (15:22) But if you’re not paying attention to what’s happening in the news over there (15:26) You you might not know until I came by person didn’t show up today. Why? (15:30) Yeah, exactly and then you got to hunt it down because they don’t have service (15:34) So if you have multiple people, it’s easy like when I you know, when our partners Ruskin when I ask them sometimes it’s it’s like (15:41) Oh, hey, I’m gonna have to text this person. They’re in Baggio, which is in the mountains and then you know in Manila (15:48) They’re like, oh, hey, they’re getting hit with a typhoon now like the power is out storms out (15:53) They can’t run generators all night.

So I think there’s a lot of risk in that granted (15:58) I do think that their English is a little bit better and they have a lot more infrastructure because (16:03) infrastructure in the terms of (16:06) Jobs like they do a lot of the call centers. They do a lot of so they have a little bit of a (16:12) Unfair like advantage but Latin America is becoming more and more (16:17) Popular and as more companies move in it’s also going to make it easier for (16:21) Companies to turn around and say hey, we do want to hire a social media person a designer, you know developer (16:26) you know, maybe an executive system a process manager somebody and (16:31) You have them on the same hours (16:33) There’s there’s a lot more benefit to a lot of America that I’ve really found useful like people a little bit of sick (16:39) You you know, you can you know my case like my Spanish is like navigational and grocery stores (16:46) But occasionally somebody tells me like, you know, what’s the word for that like something? (16:51) I was in Spanish and you know, it’s like health care or something. I’m like, oh, yeah.

Okay. I understand (16:56) It’s health care and they go. Yes, so it’s a little bit easier because (17:00) in in Southeast Asia you have (17:03) Hundreds of languages.

You don’t know if they speak, you know, Tagalog or there’s you know, there’s all this other stuff (17:09) So I’m speaking English. It’s very disjointed because of the island. Sure (17:14) Yeah, that makes I mean it makes perfect sense and you know the topography of those islands.

I mean you mentioned fires early (17:19) Why would a fire cause a problem of a fire on an island causes lots of problems because you can’t breathe (17:25) Yeah, and then the internet comes into one Junction the power comes into one Junction (17:30) All of a sudden that becomes you know problem. It was just like I (17:34) believe what Venezuela and maybe (17:38) Maybe a few years back maybe close to a decade back (17:41) Remember when their internet got cut the fiber because it was like a fire that burned through the line (17:48) Yeah, so it was like it cut off a large portion it’s just like you know in in Europe (17:53) There’s like undersea lines like you can you know, you can cut off America. It’s just easier or sorry harder in these countries (18:01) You know might be easier.

So yeah, they just don’t have the extended, you know infrastructure, but in general (18:07) I mean look we brought up a lot of things that you know do explain some of the difficulties of building out teams (18:15) You know to be able to do work internationally. It’s not to say that it’s impossible (18:19) It just means that you have to again put in the time, you know (18:22) We’ve benefited for quite a long time, you know working internationally (18:27) I mean I have not worked in digital without international support ever (18:32) You know and I think even if it’s light support or your whole operation is based on it either way (18:39) You still have to build out the infrastructure (18:41) Internally and have the SOPs and develop all of those things, you know to be able to do it (18:45) So, you know, so the last thing I’ll say too is (18:50) Your story it’s big company everybody thinks that I have to be a fortune 500 (18:55) I have to have hundreds of employees before I’m outsourcing. That’s not true.

You could be a small business (19:00) that’s a dog walker and you have somebody man your chat while you’re walk out walking the dogs or you have somebody (19:06) Help you on the books. That’s you know, that knows how to do the bookkeeping and reconciliation or you have somebody do the scheduling (19:13) There’s so many opportunities for SMBs and I really stress the S in it that they can outsource (19:20) they just need a partner that helps them and (19:24) It’s it’s it sounds hard (19:26) But if you have that right partner to help you navigate it you can talk about the currencies you can talk about the risk (19:32) You can talk about I didn’t show up or what happens or what holidays and it will give you that guidance. That’s right.

Exactly. So (19:39) Kind of a sneak peek of what we’ll be talking about, you know (19:43) you know during the (19:45) Geekdom startup week talk, but you know, we’ll cover a lot of these topics. It’ll be the 15th, which I believe is Wednesday (19:52) Okay, Wednesday (19:53) The 14th 15th.

No, it’s Tuesday. You’re right. Okay, so Tuesday.

We’ll put it on the podcast (19:59) we’ll have it as a video and a clip and then (20:03) We’re doing a special episode of the boost. We haven’t (20:07) Solidified it just yet, but maybe some really cool stuff down the street and then also (20:11) You know sit down panel with with some folks that are talking and how to start a business (20:16) You know, what what’s the impact of community? And how do you you know leverage these these? (20:23) Communities and these tools and these processes to actually build a successful business, you know, I think in the end (20:31) The resources are out there. The question comes down to is how do you adopt the resources and what what ways do you adopt? (20:39) The resources and implement them into your business, you know, I think (20:43) Just talking about you’re showing the same exact thing, right? (20:46) It’s people have done it people do do it (20:48) But everyone thinks or a lot of people think that it’s you know (20:53) Just because other people have done it that it somehow gets easier.

It’s not these are (20:58) independently learned lessons (21:01) but if you take those independently learned lessons that others have put down and (21:05) Leverage them and then build out your process accordingly you you avoid a lot of the headaches (21:11) It’s just like hiring a tax person like they’re gonna be able to explain every single little nook and cranny of rules (21:16) same thing on a hiring perspective like you can go to recruiters just like you’d go to indeed and (21:23) They’ll help you navigate all of those like small nuances. Exactly. Exactly.

So really, you know, there’s a short show today (21:31) But you know, hopefully we will get you to come out to geek them startup week (21:36) Which was again October 14th of the 18th. I’ll have my talk on the (21:41) 15th of October which is a Tuesday (21:43) We’ll cover near shoring and then we’re gonna also do a boost episode on Wednesday (21:48) I believe and it’s investing and I will put the details below. I think it’s the intercontinental hotel (21:56) Yes, so we’re looking forward to that for sure and you know, come out and check us out and we’d love to see you there (22:03) Bye