← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Remote Staffing for Contractors: How to Hire Offshore for Recruiting, Dispatch & Ops
00:31:33
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- [00:00]
A
By default, I want to hire someone overseas. So if I'm going to get somebody in the US Why do I need to have them in the US the.
- [00:06]
B
Way we think of offshoring is how can we make our Americans the most effective as possible?
- [00:11]
A
US Person is setting the strategy, doing the thinking, and then they have executional help from people.
- [00:16]
B
We want less people, but pay the people we have more.
- [00:19]
A
Without overseas talent, the way we've done it, we would not have scaled the way we have. I have one overseas dispatcher who does all the weekend dispatch, which is like 3 ish million dollars a year for us.
- [00:28]
B
When do you think operators are ready for remote.
- [00:30]
A
So as soon as you have a business, no matter what size you are, like, you should be looking to do overseas stuff.
- [00:40]
B
Welcome back. Got my good friend Isaac Zimmerman on with me today. Isaac's running Jay Blanton Plumbing and sewer. Plumbing and drain, or just plumbing. We're just going. Extra words. Okay. J. Blanton Plumbing in Chicago. We were just out at your place two weeks ago. We did an event. We also did a show there that will probably release before this one, so we'll put a link to that. And it was a ton of fun. I don't know, we had like 50 contractors out to your place. Like, that's. That was fun. What did you think?
- [01:10]
A
I thought it was awesome. Yeah, it was. It was super cool to see the online conversations, like what you do with owned and operated translate to a real world event. And just getting to host people and talk about the industry was super fun. Yeah, it was crazy when people came from other cities and different types of businesses. Yeah, it was really cool.
- [01:29]
B
Yeah, people flew from like all over or like drove. We had someone drive from New York. We had some people from Grand Rapids.
- [01:35]
A
It was cool.
- [01:36]
B
And I think what was fun is we had some, like, we had some good immediate takeaways that were kind of funny, like yard signs. So there was someone there. Nsp. I'm actually trying to get a hold of them, so shoot me a text. But. But they grew like a plumbing company from like zero to $6 million in two years or three years.
- [01:56]
A
That's what they told me.
- [01:57]
B
Yeah. And almost all of their marketing was yard signs, which is like fucking awesome.
- [02:02]
A
That is.
- [02:03]
B
That's so bad.
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A
So we ended up basically immediately starting to execute on this. So right after that, we mocked up a yard sign, printed an initial batch of 500, and then after we basically did 190 of them the first week and within two days of putting the 190 down. We sold a, like, $3,500 job, and that was really cool. However, I think we went too aggressive because we went with a blitz strategy for the yard signs, and we put too many too close together. And so we got a little flack from the village that we did it in. So I actually think we have to yank them and switch to a different city.
- [02:39]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [02:41]
A
So if you're in the yard signs, don't put them on every corner. You have to be more covert than that. It was crazy. Like, within two days of doing it, we had five customers call in, like, grumpy old ladies saying, we like to face the neighborhood. It was actually like a pretty. I mean, I knew there was going to be a blowback because, like, I just have done enough field stuff that I knew is going to be a blowback. But my mistake was telling the team, like, go all out. Like, I was like, every. Go to every side street and do every single corner, and I would not do that. So we're going to do it.
- [03:09]
B
Did you get other leads aside from that?
- [03:11]
A
I believe a couple. Yeah, we have a couple. I mean, 100 is that many? Like, our plan was to put 500 in this one village. It's a village of about 30,000 people. Where our offices.
- [03:20]
B
Yeah.
- [03:20]
A
So our plan was deploy all 500 there, and I think that would have done good. But now what we're going to do, we tracked. We put them all. So our plan is they've been there for, like, a week, the 190. We're going to go back and count them and see how many are left.
- [03:31]
B
Yeah.
- [03:32]
A
Because we upload them all to the. To the tool that we use. But our new plan is we're going to go to a different city and be more covert. Maybe do one, like, every couple blocks that way. It's. Yeah, it's there, but it's. It's a ripple. Not a. Not a. Not a tsunami.
- [03:45]
B
That's hilarious. That's really funny. Yeah, we're. We're starting, and we're pairing it with our canvassing team. Yeah. So, like, we have a very impactful canvassing team. And when I brought it up to my team leader over there, he was like, oh, yeah, we used to do that over here. And they had a specific strategy where they. They actually only leave them up for a day, and you don't need 500 or whatever in this drive. I think there's a few different ways to do this, but this was for one of the giant window companies. I don't Remember which one? Universal, maybe. And so they would go and wherever they're canvassing, they put up, like, 20 signs or 30 signs that day. They just. It's up and down that street, up and down that neighborhood.
- [04:22]
A
Then they canvas, and then they.
- [04:23]
B
And then they pull them at the end of the day. So they're actually only there for a day. And it's this mobile.
- [04:27]
A
So that's actually very cool. And that would alleviate a lot of the city issues that you would run into. I think that's a very interesting thing.
- [04:36]
B
Yeah. Well, what I. Why I want to talk to the guy from Grand Rapids is I want to ask him which strategy they used. Like.
- [04:42]
A
Yeah, no, I mean, I should. I. I'll give you a number.
- [04:45]
B
Did they do 500 at a time or did they think.
- [04:47]
A
He did what I did? And he alluded to the fact that there was blowback, but I don't. I didn't really dive into it then. Now I need to die. He said that basically, they had a Jeep. They took the, like, doors off, and we're just, like, pumping out. Just signs. Yeah. Like throwing knives, which is what we did. And again, like, that's not a good idea.
- [05:04]
B
That is so funny. Are you still missing calls after hours or losing leads while your team sleeps? That's why we work with Avoca, AI owned and operated's exclusive call center partner. They answer 24, 7, sound like a real human, and plug straight into your CRM to book jobs, send quotes, and even revive old leads. There are plenty of AI call centers out there, but we trust Avoca because we've seen the results firsthand. More book jobs, less wasted spend, and no more missed revenue. See it in action at the link below. Start winning more jobs today with voca. All right, today we're talking. Today we're talking remote work. So one of the things that you've done pretty big in your business is, like, you've brought on offshore team members.
- [05:44]
A
Yeah.
- [05:44]
B
So I think 50, 40.
- [05:46]
A
I think 53.
- [05:47]
B
Okay. I think we're in the, I don't know, 20s, 30s. We've been in the 20, 30 range for a long time. All right, so we're going to be talking remote staffing. Something that I think is funny is if you're not from, like, the Twitter, like, you know, I started creating content on Twitter, like, four or five years ago. Everyone on Twitter, like, knows about remote staffing. It's, like, old news. And I think because of that, we're all like, everyone does it. And then you go to any event Any, anything. And they're like, hold on, what do you mean?
- [06:15]
A
It blows their minds.
- [06:16]
B
It blows their minds. And like I'm talking to like very sophisticated operators and they're like, well, I've never thought about doing that. And I'm like, how do you, how can you afford to run a business, how can you afford to scale a business if you're not like bringing in talent from wherever you can find talent? So yeah, I'd love to hear your like just opening it up. Like I'd love to hear your thoughts on offshoring, how you started it, how, what it's done for the business.
- [06:41]
A
Yeah, no, I think you hit the nail on the head. For us it's been honestly like a key driver of growth. Like without overseas talent, the way we've done it, we would not have scaled the way we have. You know, I think I have 140 employees and you know, 50 something of them are overseas. So it's a huge percentage of the business.
- [06:57]
B
Yeah.
- [06:57]
A
And it covers like every business discipline. So what I try to do is have a leader for a function in the US and then try to supplement them with as many overseas people as possible. Take like accounting for example. I have a controller in the us we have a staff accountant, accountants, accounting supervisor in Columbia and we're bringing on a bookkeeper now also. So it's going to be control in the us Two overseas people. That's my entire accounting department. Yeah, install coordination. You know, we're a 30 plus million dollar business now. I've got one install coordinator in the US and then five people overseas that support it. And so they cover aspects of permitting, scheduling, customer service. And so for us it's how can we chunk down and use overseas people to own one part of the process so that it's perfected and more scalable. And so like digital marketing, we're actually in the process of retooling this. But right now I've got one digital marketing lead in the US and then he's got four or five overseas people supporting him. And what we're now doing over in digital marketing is building out specific domain expertise. We're trying to get a specific SEO person, a specific paid ads person, a specific email person. And so just have somebody who focuses on one thing. And you know, when you're a small business and you want to try to make ground on all these different things, when you have an overseas person, it's in a cost efficient way, you can build specialization.
- [08:20]
B
Yeah.
- [08:21]
A
Five times faster.
- [08:22]
B
Yeah. I mean you just never could Never could. Yeah, you just never could. Yeah. So that's roughly what we use. It's like pod. You know, I want, if you're a supervisor or like manager, like I want to be able to have a face to face on like, hey, there's an issue, let's solve this. But how can we support. And basically the way we think of offshoring is how can we make our Americans, like, how can we make our onshore team the most effective as possible? Can I reduce the button clicking? You know, tasks so that way like pure thinking, you can be like a thought worker. You can like help drive strategy. You can help move the business forward. I don't need you like pressing emails. Right.
- [09:03]
A
I, I agree 100%. That's, that's a very good summary of how we do it.
- [09:07]
B
Yeah.
- [09:07]
A
Kind of like this hub and spoke where the US person is, is setting the strategy, doing the thinking and then they have executional help from people. And then you can also invest more. The other thing we didn't just talk about, but it lets you invest more in that onshore person. So you can get a more expensive onshore person who's really a thought leader, really can drive things and then you supplement them with cheaper execution.
- [09:28]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think it's something that we're trying to work on and this is just like a philosophy change. I don't know which way is right or wrong, but I think the way we're going is right. We want less people, but pay the people we have more.
- [09:47]
A
I agree with that.
- [09:48]
B
And that's been, you know, historically that's not been our philosophy. It's been more like, okay, let's make sure we have bench. Let's make sure we have redundancy, like, which is good. Like there's nothing bad about wanting either of those. Like, we want to be defensible, but can we just have less people but like pay the people that are here like much more? Can we?
- [10:09]
A
Yeah.
- [10:09]
B
So I have a friend and he was on and he, he talked about this. We're like, yeah, he had less people but like he was able to pay like 10 to 15 grand above market on every role he had, which was awesome. I would say that I have, that'd be dream scenario.
- [10:21]
A
I have a version of that going. I would say my onshore office people are comped quite high. Yeah. Which obviously helps for recruiting retention, getting again somebody who's more firepower than what your business would traditionally be able to support.
- [10:37]
B
Yeah.
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A
And you've kind of blended it with these overseas people. So you're getting that big firepower, cheaper execution. I mean, yeah, I think it's a good model.
- [10:44]
B
You're talking to people that are starting to go remote. What are some common patterns that you're seeing? Pitfalls, successes. What do you think?
- [10:49]
A
Well, first I think to your point, like most people I talk to do not have a remote first or even remote important philosophy. So like the first thing is like people just even thinking to do it. And like I think people believing in doing it is a function of meeting somebody who runs a business they respect, who's doing it in a scaled way and has like executed well on it. So like seeing that model, that's what causes someone to have a light bulb moment. Like, wow, I could do this. And like I could see the benefit.
- [11:17]
B
Well, I, yeah, I think I'm going to dive a little deeper. If, if someone in your business is working remote right now, that job can be done from anywhere.
- [11:27]
A
Can be done from anywhere.
- [11:28]
B
And that was our unlock in Covid because that's when we started was like right before that we're like, hey, we should look into this. It was like 2019, but in 2020 we had to go remote and call volume increase. So we had to figure it out. But if something can be done remote, it can be done remote. Absolutely. So if you already have locked in process on how to do this from not physically there, then like you're most of the way there.
- [11:54]
A
I agree.
- [11:55]
B
I do think people tend to be lazy about hiring. We're like the, the only way to train CSRs in house. Like we've been training offshore CSRs for five years and but like before that we're like, dude, how do you train a csr? Like the only way is you have them ride along next to each other for three months and eventually they know how to pick up the phone. Exaggerating. But I think that's most people's philosophy.
- [12:18]
A
Yeah, no, for, yeah, for sure. I think there's, I think that's the other barrier for a lot of people do. This is like how do you start? And so that's where like using agencies and having someone help you, like that's the big way to do it. Because it's like first it's like to see is to believe. So like see somebody you respect that's doing it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And then secondly is like what is your entry point into it? That feels achievable. And so when you can work with an agency to help source somebody, train them, etc. Like that is a huge. That is like that is the two pieces of the recipe. You need like, belief by seeing somebody and then you need someone to help you start doing it. Because you're not going to like, go on the Filipino job board and like hire your own people, especially if you have no experience at that. Like, that's like, it would be a crazy move that would not be successful. And then there's like, that's a huge rabbit hole so we won't dive into it. But there's so many different nuances to like the country. You hire somebody from, the roles you hire them for, how you train them. And like, I've talked about this online before. Like, one of our biggest issues we had overseas wise was trying to get the install coordination department overseas because there's, you know, you have that sort of ops war room. Like, there's so many minute by minute things going on.
- [13:28]
B
Yeah.
- [13:29]
A
And so a big unlock for us was we put them on a TV with a continuous video and audio so they're hearing what's going on in the dispatch room and able to talk about.
- [13:37]
B
Yeah.
- [13:38]
A
Because we struggled for literally months where like, we couldn't onboard someone to actually meaningfully help with dispatch and coordination because there was too much friction with trying to like, slack them or jump on a conversation.
- [13:48]
B
Yeah.
- [13:49]
A
So there's levels like outsourcing csr, much easier than outsourcing dispatch or outsourcing insult coordination. Like, I have an, I have one overseas dispatcher who does all the weekend dispatch, which is like 10% of my business. So this guy by himself runs the entire weekend for us, which is like, we have multiple, like we have 10 people that work every weekend. And this guy's doing all the, he's coordinating with all the overseas CSRs on the weekend. He's doing all the call decision making, he's dispatching all the people and he's running the whole ship on the weekends.
- [14:26]
B
Yeah.
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A
From the Philippines.
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B
Yeah.
- [14:28]
A
And that is, you know, you know, roughly 3ish million dollars a year for us.
- [14:32]
B
Yeah.
- [14:33]
A
It's crazy.
- [14:34]
B
Yeah, it is. I think what we've learned, like we started with csrs in. Yeah. 2019. 2020. And over time we've like, it's really ebbed and flowed. Like, how much do we send over? How much do we not. I like our current pod structure a lot. But this year, 2025, we really experimented with like a lot. So last year we brought on our first overseas recruiter and that was amazing.
- [15:06]
A
So then we, I have that going.
- [15:08]
B
And then like, once we saw that be successful, it was like, oh, Holy shit. Actually, so we can do way more than we thought we could. And so like we built a purchasing team overseas, we built a job costing team. We off like we brought on more marketing people, we brought on install coordination. We started like really fully developing these teams where like before Midway last year we had dabbled. We still had 20 some people but they were all CSRs.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And now it's way more like functional roles inside the business though.
- [15:40]
A
That's the most power crazy. Those are the most powerful ones.
- [15:42]
B
That was way more powerful than just.
- [15:44]
A
Call like I forgot about recruiting. I also have three overseas recruiters and I all of my technician recruiting. So all of my plumbers in Chicago are recruited by somebody in the Dominican Republic. He spends all day on indeed scheduling interviews, going through resumes, doing pre screen phone calls. And what that enables us to do is actually consistently interview because when interviewing and recruiting is someone's secondary thing, it doesn't get done.
- [16:09]
B
Yeah.
- [16:09]
A
That was the unlock for us on recruiting. So now one person, all he does is schedule 4, 5 technician interviews a day and we just bang them out. Yep. And all that coordination part is done.
- [16:19]
B
Yeah.
- [16:19]
A
Accounting, we were able to, we had a. This was like a year and a half ago. So we were a smaller business then, but we had all of our bookkeeping done by a bookkeeping firm.
- [16:29]
B
Yeah.
- [16:29]
A
I was able to completely replace an entire bookkeeping firm with one guy in Argentina who has a master's degree in law and a master's degree in accounting. And he completely replaced an entire bookkeeping firm.
- [16:40]
B
Yeah. You can do a lot. I mean purchasing was the one that we were always like, can we, can't we? And like we did and it was fucking awesome. Yeah. Because it gave us like way more depth. We went from one overstressed, like maxed out purchasing person to like three people that have bandwidth which like maybe we need to send them more stuff. But like we're more diligently like looking at pos. We're more diligently reviewing pricing to make sure we're getting better pricing.
- [17:05]
A
And that's how I think we've unlocked a lot. Oh, it's huge. And that's how I think about it. Like it's not like can I have an overseas person and have. Do I need them to be maxed out? 100 to 10% utilization. I don't, I would rather have. And this is why like I don't give overseas people multiple roles. I chunk it down to the smallest specialization possible.
- [17:23]
B
Yeah.
- [17:23]
A
That way they're hyper focused on that. So it's almost like a leverage point. Like, okay, this is an important thing in the business. How can I use an overseas person to just apply as much leverage to that one thing as possible? Even if they work half the time, it doesn't even matter because the leverage is so high on a high return item. Yeah, Yeah.
- [17:41]
B
I think. What's the craziest role you've. Like, maybe accounting.
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A
I think the recruiting is honestly, like. Like, we have. Like, this is so crazy. We have people that come into the office, like plumbers.
- [17:51]
B
We have this every single plumbers.
- [17:52]
A
They're like. They're like, hey, I'm here to. I'm here to meet with Gilbert. Oh, Gilbert's not here. Gilbert's in. Is in the Dominican Republic. Okay, well, I'm only willing to talk to Gilbert. Yeah. Okay, well, yeah, we have. In this country, we have the same thing. People.
- [18:06]
B
People walk in and ask to talk to Chris, and it's like, I mean, she's literally in the Philippines. Like, we are like, I like Chris, too. We are unable to bring her here for this interview.
- [18:17]
A
And that's the craziest one because people think that, like, it would be impossible to have technicians be recruited in this way because it seems so crazy.
- [18:27]
B
We thought that it was going to be a real challenge, and then that's why that first one, you know, once we saw that we could do that, we were like, oh, well, that means we can call into suppliers and have them place orders. We can have them call in suppliers and check pricing. We can start unlocking. We can do ar. We unlock a lot more very functional roles, pulling permits and calling municipalities. All the things that if we can talk to a plumber and interview them, we can do any of this.
- [18:56]
A
I mean, this is kind of a good one for us, is like fleet coordination. So I have a guy overseas who. He does all the fleet coordination. So he. When we buy a new vehicle, he makes sure that the delivery is set up. Anytime that vehicle, he makes sure that it goes to the wrapping company. Anytime a vehicle has a repair issue, he schedules it to be. To be fixed. He schedules all the towing. He does anything involving vehicle coordination stuff. And he does it all remote.
- [19:22]
B
Yeah.
- [19:23]
A
The technicians call him if they have an issue with their gas card. If they break down, they call this overseas person for help. They don't call someone in the office.
- [19:30]
B
Yeah, yeah. One of the tools I've personally seen make a huge difference for service business owners is quo formerly open phone. Because when you miss a call, you're not just missing a conversation. You're losing business. Quo is the modern business phone solution. Powered by AI that helps you stay responsive and connected. It logs calls, creates summaries, and automates next steps. From drag and drop setup to AI powered call tags. Every detail is designed to make your phone system smarter, your customers happier, and your team more in sync. It's one of those tools that makes you wonder why you didn't already switch 90,000 businesses already have. Start your 7 day free trial at the link below and get 20% off your first 6 months just for being a part of the owned and operated crew. Whoa. No missed calls, no missed customers. Yeah, you brought up weekends. One of the things we thought was pretty sweet is when we first started, like really pushing on this. This was probably back in 2023. We had an like a external, an outsourced call center and they were doing a terrible job. But like the phone was ringing. We were just figuring out call volume. We're just figuring out all this stuff. So we were like, okay, how do we scale up Our call center 24, 7 to like cover this for sure? And like we immediately did it and that's when we had like 18, you know, which now I think we have 10 or something because AI took over a bunch. But it gave 24, seven coverage for like most roles that we needed. Like what did you do anything aside from call center dispatch, like weekend or you have install coordination on off shifts.
- [20:59]
A
You talking about specifically for like off hours?
- [21:01]
B
Yeah, just like how did this help expand hours?
- [21:04]
A
I mean, absolutely. Yeah. So all of our call center is overseas and so they run on different shifts. So we have, you know, a core daytime shift, then we have a shift from 12 to 10pm and then I have an overnight person. I have dedicated weekend one. So yeah, I mean, it's hugely expanded call coverage. But the reason why I keep laughing is because you asked me the craziest role and I just thought of the craziest one that I'm thinking about. This one's super off the wall. So warehouse security, you know, is a big deal. Like make sure someone's watching all of our stuff in the warehouse. And the problem with the way our warehouse set up is a lot of doors. It's like hard to use an alarm. It's like going to be like a lot of false false positives. So what I wanted to do was have a dedicated overseas person watching security cameras all night to call the police if there's any mischievous activity. But then I took it a step further and I saw that like robot thing that Came out like Neo that you can like order online for $20,000 and it's controlled by someone overseas. So I was like, wait a second. What if we got a security guard overseas by getting this Neo robot and had a control overnight? No, but I'm like dead ass thinking about this. That is so for like basically 20 grand a year, you could have this little like robot that would walk around the office and like make sure everything's okay. Well, 20 grand one time and then like the overseas person cost. So that's like my most off the wall idea.
- [22:25]
B
That's a good one. I mean, that has to be like really powerful soon for like where stock warehouse restocking or like staging jobs.
- [22:33]
A
I think that's the craziest future one because some of these new like humanoid robots are coming out. They're not fully autonomous. Like everyone's pricing this Neo one. It went super viral.
- [22:42]
B
Yeah.
- [22:42]
A
So what people are making fun of it for is that like, it has to be controlled by one of their employees. But if you combine it with this overseas idea, you can literally arbitrage a lot of your life with like these robots controlled by someone overseas. So I could say, you want a house cleaner.
- [22:56]
B
Yeah.
- [22:57]
A
You get the robot. Have someone in the Philippines control the robot.
- [22:59]
B
Yeah, that is funny. I did not think about that when I first saw that video. I was like, yeah, I'm not putting that in my house. That is funny though. That. That is funny.
- [23:09]
A
So that's my most off the wall.
- [23:11]
B
No, I like, I like, I like it. Yeah. Anything to reduce. Yeah, it's like, where's there a friction point is probably. And that like, that's a friction point is like maybe cleaning or like pulling orders or something is like, where's there a friction point? How do we. And like do. I think the helpful framework that I always use but is there's three ways to solve a friction point, maybe four. And number four is like you just ignore it.
- [23:34]
A
Yeah.
- [23:35]
B
But you hire someone in office, you hire someone overseas, or you get a software/AI now. And like those are the different ways to actually solve problems. Or ignore it. But in that case, yeah, I do think the restocking or pulling orders could be really fascinating.
- [23:52]
A
I think, I think that is like a very sensible one that in not that many years would come up with remote work.
- [23:59]
B
There's like some of the good is exactly like. I think we're talking about a lot of the good. Some of the bad is like, especially with offshore, like two jobs over employee. So that's like very common. Where people are doing like three jobs at the same exact time. Like I'm not, you know, stopping anyone from like making extra money but like if you're supposed to be answering calls, but you're answering calls for six companies at the same time, like that's, that's an issue. So we've run into overemployment. A ton of like, what are you doing to like help make sure that the team is like executing it at expectation?
- [24:32]
A
I mean I think that's is a big mistake people make. Like they think that you can just hire someone overseas and like they're just plug and play ready to go. And that's not true at all. Like you have to actually interview them.
- [24:42]
B
Yeah.
- [24:43]
A
You have to have quality standards, you have to train them.
- [24:46]
B
Yeah.
- [24:46]
A
And you have to performance management them.
- [24:48]
B
Yeah.
- [24:48]
A
So like one thing we're serious about, like before we hire someone, we're very upfront about our culture. So like our culture is that we try to make our overseas experience simulate being in Chicago. So our overseas team, everyone sits on a zoom together. Like the whole call center is on a whole day zoom together with video on. Obviously they need to take calls so you can't moonlight and do something else. Our whole install coordination team is on a two way video audio all day talking.
- [25:16]
B
Yeah.
- [25:16]
A
So we try to integrate them as much as possible. And I'm not saying that like that's never happened to us and I'm sure it has, but because we're so upfront of what we do, we actually lose people on the front end. So we'll interview someone, they'll be good. We'll tell them about having to be on a zoom all day and then they'll say actually I'm not interested. Which obviously is a red flag. So that's a huge. That's a way we screen for that is we? Yeah, we just create a culture and performance management where like you're not going to be sitting alone all day not talking to someone. No. You're going to be communicating and you're going to have to be on point.
- [25:47]
B
Yeah. Are you doing like any of the keyboard trackers or anything like that? Or like not really relevant.
- [25:52]
A
We did in the past. I honestly the zoom seems to probably solve that. Don't know if we still, I honestly don't know if we still do that. Yeah, I know.
- [25:59]
B
I also don't know that you'd need to with the like zoom on.
- [26:02]
A
Yeah. I mean I think there's. I would not do that with like more creative or like thinking roles I think with like agents, if you wanted to, like, they're not very expensive. Like you could do a keyword. Yeah. Keyboard tracking one. Yeah, yeah. That would just like periodically take pictures of their screen.
- [26:17]
B
Yeah.
- [26:17]
A
But the other thing we do in the call center is like we round robin calls. So like everyone gets calls dispersed them. So like if you miss a call, like, that is a performance issue. So like we have like my call center structured where like I have agents, they're broken up into pods. These are. They're all overseas.
- [26:31]
B
Yeah.
- [26:32]
A
Those agents have pod leads who are also overseas. And those pod leads have a call center manager who's also overseas.
- [26:37]
B
Yeah.
- [26:38]
A
And then that person reports to a US person. So I have three layers, all overseas in the call center.
- [26:42]
B
Yeah.
- [26:43]
A
And they're all executing on the structure. And so like if you're around Robin to call and given to you and you, you don't answer it, like, you have to have an explanation for why you didn't pick up that call because it will show up that you missed it.
- [26:55]
B
So like redundancy and role and I think the ability to scale that team came from the fact that you're offshore. Just like.
- [27:01]
A
Absolutely.
- [27:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it's powerful. When do you think operators are ready for remote? Like, what do you think the qualifications are? Hey, you're ready to put remote in your business?
- [27:12]
A
I think literally as soon as you possibly can at any size. Like, it's the most powerful even for very small companies. Like if you're a very small.
- [27:21]
B
If you're like a $500,000 company, like, oh, it's unlocked.
- [27:25]
A
It's a gigantic unlock.
- [27:26]
B
Like, I mean, you start getting access to better purchasing, better marketing, better call center. Like, basically immediately.
- [27:32]
A
Immediately. Let's just say, like, let's say you're, oh, you started a new plumbing company. You're one guy in a truck doing $500,000 instead of you having to answer the phone.
- [27:41]
B
Yeah.
- [27:42]
A
Pick up an overseas person for 5,000, 2,000amonth, whatever it is.
- [27:46]
B
Yeah.
- [27:47]
A
And now you no longer have to answer the phone. And one phone call will pay. That person's one answered phone call that you would have missed would pay for that person for a month.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah.
- [27:56]
A
So as soon as you have a business, no matter what size you are, like, you should be looking to do overseas stuff. Like, I'm that serious about it and passionate about it because it has been a huge unlock for us. And the smaller you are, it's hugely impactful.
- [28:09]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think the bigger you are, it's just like Efficiency. But the smaller you are, it is because it like, basically gives you the whole new function, it gives you the funds to grow, and it gives you disciplines you would have never had. Like, how do you get specialists early? Yeah, staff. Staff.
- [28:28]
C
It's no secret that my office here in Nashville is almost completely empty. So how do I support my team as well as have great growth metrics? Well, the answer is international contractors with Quick Staffers. So Quick Staffers is a premier staffing agency which will place top tier talent in your business, built by the trades for the trades. So if you need a csr, they'll be placing a CSR that is highly trained in your business, that knows service titan and can book calls effectively. Day 1 Call 1. Affordable, reliable, and trained in all of the industry best practices. Quick Staffers can help you cut that overhead, boost conversions, and scale your business fast. So don't waste another lead. Visit quickstaffers.com and transform your business today.
- [29:16]
B
What are some lessons from successful remote heavy companies that you've seen? Like, have you seen other heavy remote first companies?
- [29:25]
A
I, to be totally honest, have not met another home service contractor who's as deep on remote as I am.
- [29:31]
B
Like, well, Chris Hoffman, I think at.
- [29:33]
A
80 at one point, I'm not entirely familiar with him, but what I understand from his story is that a lot of them were not direct employees and they were hired through.
- [29:40]
B
Oh, like a bpo?
- [29:41]
A
Yeah, like a bpo.
- [29:42]
B
Okay. So I'm not actually sure.
- [29:43]
A
So I say that because, like, I don't. I honestly, like, haven't learned that much from other companies if I'm being totally honest about what they do remotely. Like, I feel like I'm pushing the boundaries of what people do. And then a lot of times, like, people are like, asking, like, asking me. So for me, like, I just experiment. If I hear somebody doing something, I'm like, oh, shoot, I could do that. And I just bolt it on. So, like, the lessons I learned are just like, hearing what people are doing and I incorporate that. So, like, you're doing some purchasing stuff that we're not doing. So, like, now I'm gonna go back and like, tell my team, like, hey, maybe we could shift some of this purchasing stuff. Like, Mike, instead of you doing that in the US and taking up a bunch of your day doing some of these pos, like, let's, let's offshore that.
- [30:27]
B
Yeah.
- [30:28]
A
So I think, like, back to what I said at the beginning of this, this segment, like, find somebody who has a similar business to you that is doing offshore stuff. And like talk to them and study what they're doing and then implement it and then like get the help of a good agency that can help you do it and staff up. And I think that's, I think those are the two key things. Yeah.
- [30:49]
B
And I think assume that every role.
- [30:51]
A
Could be done assume that every role can be done overseas and try to have an overseas mindset first. Like, yeah, can I accomplish this overseas or require a proof that you cannot to hire someone in the US So if you are by that is how we operate. Like by default I want to hire someone overseas. So if I'm going to get somebody in the U.S. why do I need to have them in the U.S. yeah, because there's, there's. And again we won't drive those rabbit hole but there's so many benefits of it from cost standpoint, specialization standpoint, employee liability standpoint, like many, many things.
- [31:20]
B
If people want to hear more about this, how can they get a hold of you?
- [31:23]
A
LinkedIn or X? I make a decent amount of content on LinkedIn and X. You can hear some more ramblings there.
- [31:31]
B
Thanks for coming on Talk Remote work today.
- [31:32]
A
Yeah, this was fun. Thank you.