In this episode, Josh interviews Nathan Hirsch, CEO of Ecom Balance and Outsource School, about hiring overseas talent, especially for senior management roles. Nathan shares strategies for promoting from within, the pros and cons of direct hiring, agencies, and marketplaces, and key legal and tax considerations. He outlines Outsource School’s step-by-step hiring and training process, emphasizing the importance of leadership potential and strong financial management. The episode concludes with actionable tips for team building and scaling, plus resources for listeners interested in effective online hiring.

Chapters:

Introduction to Nathan Hirsch (00:00:00)
Host introduces Nathan Hirsch, his entrepreneurial background, and current ventures.

Challenges of Hiring Senior Management Overseas (00:00:49)
Nathan discusses the difficulties and risks of hiring senior/managerial staff from overseas.

Promoting from Within & Key First Hires (00:01:11)
Nathan explains the importance of promoting internally and hiring initial team members with leadership potential.

Examples of Internal Promotions (00:02:09)
Nathan shares real examples of promoting team members to management roles in his companies.

Coaching and Poaching Management Staff (00:04:09)
Nathan addresses whether he has experience poaching or coaching management-level staff from other companies.

Transitioning Part-Time to Full-Time Hires (00:04:53)
Nathan describes negotiating with part-time hires to become full-time and exclusive.

Legal & Tax Considerations for Overseas Hiring (00:05:02)
Discussion on legal and tax implications of hiring overseas contractors and the importance of consulting a CPA.

Hiring Methods: Direct, Marketplace, Agency (00:06:26)
Nathan outlines the pros and cons of hiring direct, via marketplace, or through an agency.

Risk Management When Hiring Direct (00:07:41)
Tips for reducing risk when hiring direct, such as collecting identification and emergency contacts.

High-Level Hiring Process Overview (00:08:47)
Nathan provides a step-by-step overview of the hiring process taught at Outsource School.

Training, Onboarding, and Problem Solving (00:10:25)
Details on training, onboarding, and handling issues with new hires.

Outsource School Resources & Offer (00:11:31)
Nathan plugs Outsource School and its resources for business owners.

Three Actionable Takeaways Recap (00:12:16)
Host summarizes three key actionable takeaways from the episode for listeners.

Where to Find Nathan Hirsch (00:15:08)
Nathan shares where listeners can connect with him and learn more.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
"Free Up": "00:01:11"
"Podcast Outreach Formula": "00:09:35"
"Outsource School": "00:11:31"
"VA Calculator": "00:11:31"

Additional Resources
"Hiring Packet": "00:11:31"
"Case Study": "00:11:31"

Social Media
"Nathan Hirsch" on LinkedIn: "00:15:15"

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00 Today, I'm super excited to introduce you to Nathan Hirsh. Nathan is a lifelong entrepreneur and currently the CEO of Ecom Balance and Outsource School. Nathan is best known for co-founding Free Up Net in 2015 with an initial $5,000 investment, then scaling it to $12 million in yearly revenue and then having it acquired in 2019. Today, he leads Ecom Balance, an online bookkeeping service for e-commerce and digital businesses, and Outsource School, a membership teaching business owners how to hire effectively online. Nathan has appeared on over 400 podcasts and is a social media personality. Him and his wife live in Denver, Colorado with their two dogs where they are foster parents. So welcome to the show, Nathan.

Nathan 00:00:47 Josh, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Josh 00:00:49 What's your experience with hiring, like senior management level staff? do you have any advice or recommendations as to how do you go find like a C level or director level position overseas.

Nathan 00:01:05 It's tough. It is by far one of the hardest things to do. So this is kind of how I look at it.

Nathan 00:01:11 You can hire managers and senior people to come in. There's a lot of things working against you. Not only do you have to find someone with the right skill and the right managerial experience, but it's also a very tough thing to test for. But you also have to find someone that instantly fits in with your team and that your team will respect. So if I already have five VA's and I'm bringing in Bob to manage these five Vas, I need to know that those five Vas are going to like Bob, trust Bob, and that Bob's going to be able to handle it, and it takes a little bit of time to actually figure that out. So you could go a month or two before actually knowing if someone's a good manager. My strong preference, and this is what we've really been able to do at all our companies, is to always promote from within for managerial roles. And it also makes it so that your first hires at any company are unbelievably key. If you're making your first four hires of your company, you want to hire people that have management experience, that have leadership experience that wants it, that a lot of people don't want to be leaders, don't want to be managers.

Nathan 00:02:09 So these are conversations you want to have with your initial hires. You don't want to just hire the data entry VA. You want to hire someone who's maybe overqualified for that initial role and let them know if they prove themselves. You're going to be looking for a leadership role in the future, and we did a great job with that. At Free Up, we had chicken, who was on our Amazon team, who we promoted from within there, and she became head of recruitment. We hired a bookkeeper and then made him the head of bookkeeping. Marius, like I said. And then we had two people, Jane and Layton, who started off just doing like customer emails and then eventually became the two heads of customer service. We needed two of them because we had 24 over seven customer service, but that's kind of how we've always done it. And with econ balance, the initial bookkeepers we hired, we made sure they had leadership and management experience. And they're now the senior bookkeepers and the team leaders of econ now.

Nathan 00:02:59 And so it's always easier to promote from within. It's less risky. It's usually cheaper leads to less issues. There are situations where you're not able to do that, but my personal preference is to always promote from within.

Josh 00:03:12 That makes a lot of sense. And I would echo 100% what you said there in terms of those key, those initial hires are key hires. Same thing. Even when we've hired a customer service role for our business, or an Amazon assistant or an Amazon specialist or supply chain specialist, it's not just to do the the data entry or the current tasks that we have assigned to them. Each one of them, I have wanted to see that they have management level talent with inside them, that they've had that experience managing other people. They've been promoted consistently in the past in the hopes that you're going to fill this role and then be able to fill even more roles in the future. So I think that's super important. Nathan, is there any experience that you have then with coaching at all, like management level staff.

Nathan 00:04:09 no, I don't think I've ever poached like that. I'm trying to think there have been situations whe...