← Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 445 - Virtuzone Managing Director, Paul Bryson
01:00:13
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- [00:00]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron Herald, the host of the Second in Command podcast. Before we dive in, there's something you need to know. If you're a coo, VP Operations, or you're in any role where you're the second in command to the CEO, the COO alliance is the place for you. If you're the integrator to the visionary, you're going to want to join us. The COO alliance is the world's leading community for the second in command. We've had over 500 members like you join from 17 countries to grow their skills, connections and confidence. You'll get the tools, friendships, and a 10x guarantee to ensure that you get your money's worth. Go to cooalliance.com to learn more and see if you qualify. You can even book a free call with our team to ask questions. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
- [00:44]
Paul Bryson
I think that helps you. We spoke about motivation, I think before we went on air, before we started recording. Well, and that's part of it. If you understand your people individually, you can get more out of them. If you really understand who they are, and they will want to work for you. They find you that leader. But true what you say, a high percentage of the output comes from a small percentage of the people. And often, if we need that extra effort, that extra boost, if we've got deadlines and things coming up, the natural thing people look at is, well, let's go to these poor performers. They're doing so bad, let's push them against something so difficult. Welcome to the Second in Command podcast.
- [01:22]
Cameron Herold
Produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold.
- [01:27]
Paul Bryson
In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the.
- [01:31]
Cameron Herold
Insights, strategies and tactics that made him the chief behind the chief.
- [01:36]
Paul Bryson
And now here's your host, Cameron Herold.
- [01:44]
Cameron Herold
All right, I'm super happy today. We have Paul Bryson with us. He's the managing director of a company based in the UAE, based in Dubai called VirtueZone. Virtuzone is the company that helps expats and CEOs set up their companies, incorporate, set up their personal lives in the uae. They're actually the company that helped me set up my business, the CEO alliance, and my invest in your leaders course. And all of my businesses here in the UAE had the privilege of being able to go inside the VirtueZone offices. 250 employees. Paul has been managing director there for about seven years. Unbelievable brand, unbelievable business. They're doing stuff with lots of different free zones in the region. You're going to love the episode, you'll love the insights into how business is done in the uae and you'll love the experience share of Paul Bryson, managing director of Virtuzone. You can also watch all of our episodes inside our Second in Command podcast YouTube channel. See you on the inside. So, Paul, welcome to the Second In Command podcast.
- [02:43]
Paul Bryson
Thank you very much for having me. It's always great to do these things. I really enjoy it. It's become something that got me out of my comfort zone and I feel like I'm getting used to just talking now. Presenting. It's never a problem.
- [02:56]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. And thank you for having me into your studio too. We're here in Dubai. This is the second interview that I've now done in the uae. I had the second in command for WEO bank on about six months ago. Now I've got you guys and. And there's a reason that I wanted VirtueZone on the podcast. You know what it is?
- [03:10]
Paul Bryson
No.
- [03:11]
Cameron Herold
I'm a client, so I knew that. Well, that was part of the reason. So I.
- [03:17]
Paul Bryson
You're not hunting for discounts?
- [03:19]
Cameron Herold
No, no, no discounts. No. Well, I could be at times, but no, I. So I moved my company here about a year ago, moved my residency here a year ago. Got introduced to a local named Spencer Lodge. Do you know Spencer? Really good friend of mine now, yeah. Very good podcast. I've been a guest on his podcast. Really amazing human being, very close friends. I'm having dinner with him tomorrow. Been to his home, et cetera, et cetera. And I asked for a couple people who I should use to help me get set up in the. In the region. And he pointed to you guys and then another friend of mine pointed to you guys and I was a little skeptical. I didn't know where in the UAE to go. Didn't know who this Virtue Zone thing was. You know, went on the website. It looked pretty fancy. And then I came into the office one day to pick up some paperwork and was greeted with, you know, the gift bag and somebody at the reception desk and all these people coming in and out. And it felt like it was either a. The real deal with an amazing culture and amazing people and everybody was super busy or. Or it felt like I was a part of some fraud happening because it seemed too good to be true. You guys have got an amazing company.
- [04:24]
Paul Bryson
We do, we do. We've got, you know, amazing leadership and amazing and amazing people. And it's good to hear that. We had some fantastic introductions from people that we would consider, you know, friends of the company, which is great. And in Dubai I think certainly for us, a lot of our business comes from that referral network. So we very much broke the mold as a corporate service provider when we started advertising. So we've got a huge marketing machine. And you, as you said, you're sitting here in our podcast studio. There wouldn't be many corporate sales providers who have a podcast studio.
- [05:00]
Cameron Herold
Sure.
- [05:01]
Paul Bryson
This is a smaller studio, I guess if we can set the picture. I don't know how big this is, but certainly about a third of the size of our previous studio.
- [05:08]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [05:09]
Paul Bryson
We had to downsize and move, you know, you're expanding. We're expanding. Right. And we've had to. Our old studios now turned an office for a couple of people. We've managed to squeeze ourselves in here and it looks nice and I'm sure that will continue. Perhaps it will continue to grow. We'll, we'll find some other space to, to grow this. It's been, it's been fantastic studio. We've been, we've been using it well but good to get the recommendations. They're big for us in terms of the company, of the culture. I don't know what you know about the background.
- [05:35]
Cameron Herold
Yeah, why don't you tell us? Tell us. So virtuezone is a. Is a company that helps business people set up in the UAE and set up all aspects of their business and run their businesses. Right. Tell me what you do.
- [05:46]
Paul Bryson
It's probably an alien concept to certain listeners, right. Depending on where you're from. If you're here in the ue, it's very common. If you're in offshore jurisdictions or other business centers, perhaps like Singapore, Hong Kong and then look at the Isle of Man, Guernsey even perhaps think closer to home. Think Delaware.
- [06:08]
Cameron Herold
Well, I was in Barbados prior to this example.
- [06:11]
Paul Bryson
Yes. Through those Caribbean countries where. So they're definitely places where, you know that we would consider them to be structuring centers, wealth centers. In the UK Sometimes we have negative connotations. We think tax evasion, tax avoidance. In actual fact, that's not the case. It's very much tax optimization through strategic planning. Perfectly legal. Just sometimes gets a bit of a bad rep in the media depending on who's using it.
- [06:40]
Cameron Herold
I think what gets a bad rep is you never really know if you've got like these directors or the accounting firm, like do they really exist? But you guys have got 250 employees. I mean this is a real business with real moving parts.
- [06:52]
Paul Bryson
Funny what you're using. They're real because I actually use them and continue to do so. So when people talk to me about setting up offshore, because you can set up offshore companies here, like you can do the British Virgin Islands. And people ask me, well, what's the difference? And I said, well, the first thing is this is a real place. I am not saying the BVI is not a real place, but think it's a Caribbean island full of filing cabinets for corporate documents.
- [07:14]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [07:15]
Paul Bryson
It really is a hub of commerce industry. You will see industrial warehouse space, you will see business transactions taking place, buying and selling. You would see that in these other jurisdictions. So people come here, they will see it, they'll level.
- [07:30]
Cameron Herold
They're setting up real companies through VirtueZone.
- [07:32]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [07:32]
Cameron Herold
Real operating businesses.
- [07:34]
Paul Bryson
Yes, 100%. So that's. Let's see if we go back to the start. So the company was set up by Neil Petsch and Jeff Rob. Okay. So Neil and Jeff, I would say, pretty well known in Dubai now, been here for a long time. And it was set up because there was a, you know, there was a gap in the market, so to speak. There was a need for an easy company set up for entrepreneurs that was cheap and fast. It wasn't too.
- [08:00]
Cameron Herold
And clean and legal.
- [08:02]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, completely. It wasn't too easy to set up a company in Dubai, 2005, 6, 7, you know, you needed local partners. They had to own 51%. You also needed an office, as in your own physical office with a lock and key.
- [08:17]
Cameron Herold
Well, it's also confusing. When I was coming here, I didn't know anyone. I didn't know where to go for a bank, I didn't know who to use for a bookkeeper. I didn't know. I didn't know where to go get my driver's license. I didn't know where to find the forms. Like as a Canadian, it was so foreign to me. And VirtueZone just made that easy.
- [08:32]
Paul Bryson
So you're right in that way because we would be used to. If, for example, I was setting up a company in the uk, I could do that online.
- [08:41]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [08:41]
Paul Bryson
I could do it in about 20 minutes for about £50. Or I could get an accountant to do it at home for 200. Again, a drop in the ocean, not a lot.
- [08:49]
Cameron Herold
And you go down to the local pub and ask 10 people and five of them could show you how to do it.
- [08:53]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. If you went here at the local pub and asked 10 people, 10 of them will give you 10 different answers. Right. And that's why we exist. So if, when you come, when you set Up a home, let's say, and I'll refer to the uk, that there's one jurisdiction. There's a couple of types of company. Usually it's a limited company here, although it's a small country. There's 65 jurisdictions inside the country, MoreLab. Each of those jurisdictions have got their own rules, regulation and regulatory body. You could possibly have come here, researched all 65 and made a decision. You drove yourself insane and probably decided this place isn't for me because it's too complicated.
- [09:30]
Cameron Herold
Well, and I just found out this morning that as an example, the difc, which is the zone that my company is based in, has English common law rules. But Abu Dhabi, which is another part of the uae, is under local laws, like completely different laws, not even that.
- [09:46]
Paul Bryson
So even if you're in difc, and then you exit difc, cross the street on the Shakeside Road, that's a different one. Which is governed by Sharia law.
- [09:54]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [09:55]
Paul Bryson
So the DIFC is another great, fantastic innovation by the leadership of the country to create, you know, some sort of structuring center that attracts foreign investment. Foreign investors are more likely to come and set up through the DIFC or evgm, which is the DIFC equivalent in Abu Dhabi.
- [10:14]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [10:15]
Paul Bryson
I probably don't like being referred to as that, but, you know, in practice, that's what it's become. Both are separate from UAE federal law, set outside Sharia law, and are governed solely by UK common law. So everything that occurs in there is governed by that, not the law of the land, so to speak. That gives comfort and confidence to foreign investors to come in and set up a company governed by English common law. And if there's any problems, any issues between shareholders, they can have rulings made in a common law court in English using precedents, not using the application of Sharia law. And that just really gives confidence and it shows why Dubai has gone to where it is, because the leadership is willing to do things like that.
- [11:02]
Cameron Herold
So did Neil and Jeff see this when they were coming in? Did they see the confusion and complication? Were they setting up their own company? Is that what happened? Or how did they kind of come up with the idea?
- [11:11]
Paul Bryson
Jeff was actually part of the launch team of the DIFC.
- [11:13]
Cameron Herold
Okay, okay.
- [11:14]
Paul Bryson
@ the time.
- [11:15]
Cameron Herold
Okay. When that was set up, so he saw people struggling.
- [11:18]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, but Neil would have seen it as well. So. So Neil would have definitely seen it here. This. He had a few business interests at that point, and they were kind of close. So the way that it started here is they were quite close to the royal family in Fujairah at the time. And the royal family in Fujairah and said, look, you know, we've got a free zone here in Fujairah. And Fujiana's two hours north. Right.
- [11:39]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [11:40]
Paul Bryson
One of the seven emirates.
- [11:41]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [11:42]
Paul Bryson
Dubai and Abu Dhabi being the famous one.
- [11:43]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [11:44]
Paul Bryson
So Fujairah's tours north, you're able to set up companies there. But most people want to set them up in Dubai. The barriers in Dubai, where it was really expensive. He needed an office when a lot of people didn't want an office. And you need the local to own some of the shares. One percent of the business.
- [12:03]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [12:03]
Paul Bryson
These were three kind of barriers.
- [12:05]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [12:06]
Paul Bryson
Huge barrier. So you've got this, you've. Up in Fujairah, they have a freezer. It's not doing too well at the time. And the guys are saying, look, we want to have a free zone. We want to try for an investment. And Neil at the time had said, look, let's create a new free zone. We'll theme it around media and publishing. We'll set it up there. I'll be your agent. I'll base myself in Dubai and I'll. I'll sell the. The licenses from there and. And hence the name Virtue Zone.
- [12:32]
Cameron Herold
It's this virtual free zone.
- [12:34]
Paul Bryson
Wow. It's there somewhere. But you don't need to go. You could come in our office and JBR the walk. Right. Really central. And we'll take care of the license. And we would just send drivers up and down all day for paperwork, you know, so that you don't need to leave the beach.
- [12:49]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [12:49]
Paul Bryson
To leave Dubai. And we would take care of everything at a fraction of the cost of Dubai. And I was working with a competitor at the time when. When virtual zone was established and thought, this is never going to last. These guys are crazy.
- [13:01]
Cameron Herold
Well, and it is. So you are priced at about 25% more than some of the competition. Because I looked at it and there was no way I was going to go with any of the competition because you guys made it much simpler. It was much cleaner. It seemed much more above board. It seemed much more friendly. And I was prepared to pay because it's a rounding error in terms of price, like 25%. But it's not that big of a difference.
- [13:23]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [13:24]
Cameron Herold
You know, is that.
- [13:25]
Paul Bryson
It's funny you say that. I find that we're quite keenly priced.
- [13:28]
Cameron Herold
Are you okay?
- [13:28]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. But it depends what we're competing against. So I would say.
- [13:33]
Cameron Herold
But I mean, I didn't even care. Like if I go out for a really nice steak dinner and I'm going to pay $40 or do I go for an okay steak dinner and I pay 30, it's 25% more, but for 10 bucks. Yeah, it's not, we're not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, like $1,000, $2,000.
- [13:47]
Paul Bryson
I think that means we've done our job and shown you the value.
- [13:50]
Cameron Herold
Huge value.
- [13:51]
Paul Bryson
And that's what I.
- [13:52]
Cameron Herold
And, and, and the fear was gone because especially when I came into the.
- [13:56]
Paul Bryson
Office, when I walked in confidence, right.
- [14:00]
Cameron Herold
I walked into the office and I was like, wow. I mean, I'm in as nice a business office as I would be in Canada or the United States. I felt like I was an Internet company. The hub was like. I was like, okay, I'm good. Yeah, all the fear was gone.
- [14:11]
Paul Bryson
And we've got that right. It's that kind of open plan environment office. And if you come in to the reception area, you'll often find that during business hours it's quite busy.
- [14:20]
Cameron Herold
It's a buzz.
- [14:21]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Clients are coming, they're picking up documents, dropping documents, collecting company stamps, coming in to meet the team. So there's always something.
- [14:28]
Cameron Herold
So you were working at a competitor?
- [14:30]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, I've worked for two or three competitors.
- [14:32]
Cameron Herold
Okay, and then why did you join here or did they come and get you?
- [14:36]
Paul Bryson
They did, actually, at the time, yeah, I was working for a Swiss law firm based in Dubai. And yeah, one of my old, my old CEO from previous company came to see me about coming here to launch virtual zones mainland department. So they were very famous in that free zone space. Historically, I had been very successful at working in the mainland space. And he said, you want to come here and launch the mainland department? It wasn't my intention at the time, I guess really similar to you actually because I thought, ah, you know, they do cheap and cheerful free zone setups in Fajera. That's not for me. I quite like doing the more sophisticated mainland setups and working in volume.
- [15:18]
Cameron Herold
Sure.
- [15:19]
Paul Bryson
And I remember I took the meeting courtesy almost the time and then when I came out of the office, I couldn't believe, Right. I couldn't believe the amount of people. Then when they started showing me numbers, how many companies to set up, that blew my mind because I thought, you know, you could, you could maybe set up pen 10 to 20 companies a month.
- [15:40]
Cameron Herold
Not pushing 500 when I was pushing.
- [15:43]
Paul Bryson
500 when I came in.
- [15:45]
Cameron Herold
But now you are.
- [15:46]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [15:46]
Cameron Herold
When I, when I walked in the door, I expected to see 15 or 16 people. I had no idea.
- [15:53]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, that's the reaction that we get from most people.
- [15:57]
Cameron Herold
I think everybody that walks in the door says, yes, you can't lose any. You can't lose any. Really? You let people.
- [16:03]
Paul Bryson
No, I don't have to say that, but I tend to encourage. So. So the team's growing a lot. Right. So we've got a team of consultants. There's 24 consultants who would meet someone like you, new to buy, wants to set up something, knows they've got a business idea, and there's a pain point because they can't just go and set up quickly themselves. And they just want proper advice. Right. And I tend to tell the guys, bring the clients in.
- [16:24]
Cameron Herold
Oh, yeah.
- [16:25]
Paul Bryson
Because this sells it as well. The location, the buzz.
- [16:29]
Cameron Herold
Especially if you don't meet them right at the front lobby, just walk them down the hallway, around the corner. As soon as it's game over, you.
- [16:35]
Paul Bryson
Walk around that corner. What you'll notice if you pay attention, the next time you see it as that has extended, because you'll see lanes, like in the roof, where we've had to buy the next office and knock the wall down and extend and then buy the next office and knock the wall down.
- [16:48]
Cameron Herold
I was at. I was at Rackspace's head office in Texas, and they bought an old shopping mall.
- [16:53]
Paul Bryson
Okay.
- [16:54]
Cameron Herold
And they. They had built out about 75%. And where the drywall wall was on the other side of the wall was just empty shopping mall still.
- [17:01]
Paul Bryson
Okay.
- [17:01]
Cameron Herold
And they would start building out the next 10%. And then they'd take down the drywall and they'd be ready. They kept, like, extending and extending. You have two floors here or three floors here?
- [17:10]
Paul Bryson
Two.
- [17:11]
Cameron Herold
Too far?
- [17:11]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, two and growing. You know, we're almost out of space again. We also have another office on Ship's Eye Road.
- [17:18]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [17:19]
Paul Bryson
We have a huge tax and accountancy business as well. Yeah.
- [17:22]
Cameron Herold
What are the different parts of your business? So you've got the setup.
- [17:25]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [17:25]
Cameron Herold
You do legal.
- [17:27]
Paul Bryson
We do. We do. We're not like. Well, so we're not licensed to law firm.
- [17:30]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [17:31]
Paul Bryson
But we've partnered with the IFC law firms.
- [17:32]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [17:34]
Paul Bryson
And we do some reciprocal work together. Not enough demand for us to do it, you know, permanently as a law firm, but as a business. Right. So let's take a look at VirtueZone. Right. So there's the group.
- [17:46]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [17:46]
Paul Bryson
There's virtual group, and there's a few other companies within it. But let's take virtuezone. So virtuezone, initially. Yes. We'll Advise someone who wants to set up a business. They'll normally come with a business idea or a notion. And the first thing we want to know is where's the audience for the product or service? And if that audience is inside a particular free zone or a particular emirate, we'll perhaps look at setting you up there. If that audience is the whole the UE or all of Dubai, then we might look at mainland options. So that's where we start. Right. And then we'll. We'll tend to say, here's two choices, you know, 65 options, you know, here's two or three that will work for you. Here's a value. You know, sometimes we'll tell someone, look, you actually just need a very plain vanilla company only set up.
- [18:35]
Cameron Herold
It costs nothing.
- [18:36]
Paul Bryson
Right. Or, you know, we don't. Or we'll get sophisticated because you need to know where you're going in the next five years. So we start with that, we get the proposal out and then we can execute the setup. Now, in the uee, there's a few post licensing requirements since the introduction of vat. Right.
- [18:53]
Cameron Herold
And that's got. Corporate tax has got to be big. For you guys, it was fantastic. It just added a whole layer of complexity. The clients hate it, but for you guys, you're like, wow, we got some more business coming in.
- [19:03]
Paul Bryson
Funny, funny. You see that? So about four years ago, the biggest change I ever seen in commercial companies law here was the removal of the need for local partners. So no need for locals to own 51%. And although that was. That was one of our core offerings was providing that 51% to you as a foreigner.
- [19:25]
Cameron Herold
Sure.
- [19:25]
Paul Bryson
Through a company. Rather than, you know, you going out and finding Abdullah and the street to be your 51, you have virtue zone act as 51.
- [19:34]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [19:34]
Paul Bryson
Gives you a lot more confidence. You put some documents in place, which gives you the ownership. You pay for that service. So that was a great, great product for us. When that was removed, we took a bit of a hat because people could just own the company's 100.
- [19:48]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [19:49]
Paul Bryson
And didn't need us for that.
- [19:49]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. So you lose that service then with.
- [19:51]
Paul Bryson
The instruction of corporate tax came in. Fantastic. Because we looked at the market and there's about 550,000 SMEs in Dubai. None of them have heard of tax.
- [20:03]
Cameron Herold
Oh, and they're not even your clients yet.
- [20:05]
Paul Bryson
Yes, but the ones that are not clients. Right. So we've seen that as a huge land grab.
- [20:12]
Cameron Herold
Oh, my gosh. Of course.
- [20:14]
Paul Bryson
We were in the process of looking at acquiring an accountancy firm, decided not to do it. Right. The currency firm we're going to buy or Acquire had 400 clients which is quite a nice number. We decided not to that. Let's bootstrap this ourselves. Brought in John Casey who looks after the accountant taxation division. And we just, we went for it, right. Wow. Market and advertised the way we did and we created this package. We pledged to get 10,000 businesses. So we said let's go get 10,000 clients. Right. We pledge to get 10,000 businesses tax ready for free. What does that mean? We'll register them for corporate tax. We'll do three months of their accounts to get them up to speed. Okay. At the end of that for free. At the end of that three months they can decide to continue us doing their accounts. Which you know, if you've been doing someone's accounts for three months, we hope that they would say yeah, you're doing a good job, you're very well priced, Dh800amonth for example thereafter to do it without you having to hire an accountant. Or we'll say to them there you go, there's your registration, there's your three months document.
- [21:19]
Cameron Herold
These are your three options. We'll do it for you, we'll do it with you. Or here, we'll set you up and you can do it on your own.
- [21:25]
Paul Bryson
Right.
- [21:25]
Cameron Herold
But you got them either way.
- [21:27]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. So look, we set up and said let's go and try and get 10,000 business. Ridiculous target but we thought we'll give ourselves an audacious goal. And at the end of it we ended up something like 5,700 clients. Right. That we now do all their account and tax work.
- [21:42]
Cameron Herold
It's incredible.
- [21:43]
Paul Bryson
We have 60 accountants now back office and shakes eyed road and another office and.
- [21:47]
Cameron Herold
And for the listener, we haven't even finished the end of the first year that corporate taxes actually even do. 2024 is the first year.
- [21:55]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [21:55]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [21:55]
Paul Bryson
People haven't done their filings.
- [21:56]
Cameron Herold
The year's not even over.
- [21:57]
Paul Bryson
It's just all the registrations. Yeah. Next year's the big year.
- [22:00]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. I had a question this morning that actually came up. I was meeting with my financial advisor, Spencer Lodge's team does all my wealth management here. And I was meeting with his head person, Carla and I asked her, she wasn't sure. Do you guys have an executor program for someone who has their will? If I have my will in the uae, do you have a program where you can be the executor on the ground for The.
- [22:21]
Paul Bryson
No, we don't have that. We do. Have you got the ifc?
- [22:24]
Cameron Herold
Well, I don't know which way. I'm meeting with a lawyer next week to find out which way I'm going. Yeah, that's my guess. It'll be a deal. Even though it's a little more expensive than you. Abu Dhabi will.
- [22:31]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. But it's good. And you've got assets here.
- [22:34]
Cameron Herold
Yeah, well, yeah, I have. I have my businesses here, and then I do have my bank accounts here, so not a ton. Most of my stuff is either offshore or in Canada. US Is.
- [22:41]
Paul Bryson
They're not. You say they're not the cheapest, but it just gives you that extra.
- [22:44]
Cameron Herold
Because it's common law.
- [22:45]
Paul Bryson
Peace of mind. But you would. You would have. And with the. Well, you also have a letter of wishes.
- [22:49]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [22:49]
Paul Bryson
So. And what you want to do. And that's. That. That's totally fine.
- [22:55]
Cameron Herold
But I'll figure out the exact.
- [22:57]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [22:57]
Cameron Herold
Okay. So go back to this whole, like, the different businesses that you provide and the extensions you provide. I love the fact that you guys just picked a crazy number, as you said, a very audacious goal that you reverse engineer into it. When you joined the company almost three years ago, what was.
- [23:11]
Paul Bryson
I've been here for seven.
- [23:12]
Cameron Herold
You've been here for seven. Now I'm sorry. Okay.
- [23:13]
Paul Bryson
Sorry. I moved the. Moved out of the MD role.
- [23:16]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [23:16]
Paul Bryson
But I've been here for seven.
- [23:17]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [23:18]
Paul Bryson
So been in the market for kind of 13.
- [23:22]
Cameron Herold
Okay. So that's a little bit different. So you've been in the company and moving up into the role. Moving into the managing director role. About three years ago, when you were moving into the managing director role, what did you see that you wanted to change or make better? What was it that you said? Okay, this is my area. I know. I know what one of them is.
- [23:38]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Culture.
- [23:39]
Cameron Herold
Culture.
- [23:40]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. It's big for me. That and wellness. Right. They became real hot topics. And I think wellness became a real hot topic during COVID as well. So wellness. I mean, mental wellness and burnout. Yeah. So general culture, happiness. So, look, we work absolutely in a very successful organization. Right. We are high performance.
- [24:02]
Cameron Herold
You can tell.
- [24:03]
Paul Bryson
Real high performance organization. And. Yeah. Within that, I want people to remember why they're working, why they come here. Because. And if we ever forget that, that we come here, you and I are even sitting here in this room both to improve our lives outside of this room. Yeah. Not because we enjoy coming to work. Yes, we do enjoy it. That's half the battle. But we are here. Why Are we here? So, yeah. Culture was important for me, making people realize why they're working just to reaffirm their goals and motivations. Because I can't motivate and drive someone if I don't know what motivates that person. And each person has a different motivation completely, a different trigger, and they have to trigger it in themselves.
- [24:49]
Cameron Herold
You can't motivate people, but you can hire motivated people.
- [24:52]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, I agree with that. And it's not a case that you can go out and beat someone with stack. Right. And get them to work. That doesn't work. That might work for an hour, but it's not going to work in two, three, four hours or the next day. The next day. The next day. Right. So I want people that want to work for me, that want to work for us, that want to work together and that know why they're here, know why they're in the country and why they're in the company. And that is something that I like. That drives you every. Every day.
- [25:21]
Cameron Herold
Well, and you saw this because you came into the managing director role right in the middle of COVID Yeah, just towards the end of it, but. But still, like it was. It was happening and. Or the effects of it were certainly there.
- [25:33]
Paul Bryson
I felt we navigated covert so well.
- [25:35]
Cameron Herold
How did you navigate it? What was that like?
- [25:38]
Paul Bryson
You know, I speak to people as you know. Right. I speak to people all over the world every day. And Dubai, like, first of all, let's say you look at a macro level. Dubai just handles it so well.
- [25:48]
Cameron Herold
What did they do? Because I wasn't looking at Dubai then for a.
- [25:52]
Paul Bryson
Not call it lockdown. We're locked down for a month.
- [25:55]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [25:56]
Paul Bryson
Right. That was it.
- [25:57]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [25:57]
Paul Bryson
A month. We were back in the office a month later.
- [26:00]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [26:00]
Paul Bryson
I have friends that work from home for two and a half years.
- [26:03]
Cameron Herold
Oh, yeah.
- [26:04]
Paul Bryson
I have friends that still work from home that even feel they've regressed socially.
- [26:09]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [26:09]
Paul Bryson
Because they're not interacting.
- [26:11]
Cameron Herold
I did nine, 14 day quarantines, so that's a lot of time in your quarantine. 120 days in quarantine.
- [26:17]
Paul Bryson
Stop. Good. So good for the mains.
- [26:18]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. It wasn't. I drank a lot.
- [26:20]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, well, I can imagine it's not good for the. But we. Yeah. Look, so the country handled it so well. I mean, if I wanted to go shopping for groceries, I could go on. The Dubai police apply and they'll send me a permit and I get to go out for 90 minutes. Right. So I need to get out, get back if anyone Stops me. I can show them why I'm. Wow. So limited amount of people were out at any one time. It was, it was really. And it was really good. We were back in a month later. We put precautions in place in the office. We worked two different shifts so that only half the people were in at any one time.
- [26:52]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [26:53]
Paul Bryson
We installed the necessary PPE at the time, but we didn't lose people. We didn't cut salaries.
- [26:59]
Cameron Herold
Interesting.
- [26:59]
Paul Bryson
We managed to maintain and. And then Dubai really boomed because we've seen people that were locked down in other countries, Right. They said, down here, I'm not doing this anymore. I am getting out of here. And Dubai really just. Just killed it. Right. From a business standpoint, you've got digital nomads come in. You know, crypto kids come in. People who can work remotely are setting up, living here, operating from here, living a great life, well connected, flying and out.
- [27:29]
Cameron Herold
I just thought of a group that you guys have to connect with. Do you know the company called Mind Valley with Vishen Lakhiani? They're holding an event here in January called Future human. They'll have 6,000 people. Most of them are digital nomad entrepreneurs. I'm going to connect you with them because you guys would be a natural partner for Mind Valley. And they're all about wellness too. I'll do an intro, but. So I'm curious, your employee base. I was standing in the lobby today when we were getting ready to meet, and the gentleman stood up and he said, the woman I'm meeting with, does she speak Farsi, which is Iranian? And the receptionist said, no. And he goes, can you get someone who speaks Farsi? And she said, of course. No one in Canada, like, you know, do you. Do you have.
- [28:12]
Paul Bryson
They might not even know how many different.
- [28:13]
Cameron Herold
How many different cultures are working here or countries? Languages? All of them, practically.
- [28:19]
Paul Bryson
Well, I know that I've seen it in a brochure recently, so that's how I could probably call the languages. I think it's something like 28 languages.
- [28:26]
Cameron Herold
Incredible.
- [28:27]
Paul Bryson
Don't know the countries, but it's, it's, it's a lot. Yeah. I mean, it's super max, Right. From North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, Australasia. I think all the continents are pretty much.
- [28:40]
Cameron Herold
Is it easy to get them to mix when there's just so many? Is it just become like a melting pot of, of amazing cultural people?
- [28:46]
Paul Bryson
Mine's like that, right?
- [28:47]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [28:47]
Paul Bryson
Dubai as a city has over 200 nationalities.
- [28:50]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [28:51]
Paul Bryson
And. And for the most part, people tend to coexist quite harmoniously.
- [28:55]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. Yeah. In many ways you and I are the, the, the minority. Like we're the English speakers.
- [28:59]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [29:00]
Cameron Herold
Versus the, the Russians or the Ukrainians or the, you know, the Europeans.
- [29:04]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. But yeah, no, Dubai's fostered that. That environment very well. And even from. If you think we are all guests here and, and you know, we have local hosts and they've been so tolerant and accommodating of non UE nationals entering the market, knowing the value of having these people, you know, expats here, but, you know, probably find it quite annoying if we couldn't go to the local grocery store and order bread and milk.
- [29:32]
Cameron Herold
Well, and we can't language. No. And we can. Which is incredible. I feel like I'm walking around Vancouver except I hear all the languages. Like I'm walk. Walking through all of Europe.
- [29:40]
Paul Bryson
You imagine though, you're a local and Arabic unit of tongue and you can't go into the store and order these small things in Arabic.
- [29:46]
Cameron Herold
Sure.
- [29:46]
Paul Bryson
How tolerant. Right. If that was Canada. Yeah.
- [29:49]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [29:49]
Paul Bryson
You had to walk in, couldn't speak English. Right.
- [29:51]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [29:52]
Paul Bryson
Or French, I guess. In Canada.
- [29:53]
Cameron Herold
In parts of Canada.
- [29:54]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. That's another argument. Right.
- [29:55]
Cameron Herold
Well, parts. Parts of Vancouver is very Chinese. Hey, it's Cameron. I hope you're loving today's episode. Quick question for you. Does your company have a strong leadership training program in place to grow the skills of everyone who manages people? If you want to help yourself and your company grow, get everyone who manages people learning from my Invest in youn Leaders online training program. There are 12 core leadership skills that I cover online and for only 650 per person, they're all going to really grow. CEOs pay me $78,000 a year to coach them one on one. And now you can all benefit for 1% of what they pay me. These are the same leadership skills that I created and certified everyone in at 1-800-got junk when I was there as COO. Go to investinyourleaders.com today and use promo code podcast10 before the end of the month to get 10% off each manager you sign up. Now back to the show is right now we call. Yeah. Vancouver's nickname is Hong Koover because of all the Hong Kong Chinese. It's 50 Chinese in some areas.
- [31:06]
Paul Bryson
Wow.
- [31:07]
Cameron Herold
Chinese signage and. Yeah, but I got it that signage. Oh yeah, yeah, very Chinese. Yeah. All the area of Richmond. So I'm curious on. On the staffing here and on the pay grades here. What are the pay grades like relative to. Relative to Europe or Relative to North America. Like are they paid in local.
- [31:24]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, everyone's paid local currency.
- [31:25]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [31:26]
Paul Bryson
But for the job that you do here, if you were doing an equivalent job.
- [31:29]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. You'd be getting paid more somewhere else.
- [31:31]
Paul Bryson
No, no, I would say you're definitely being paid more here, but the cost of living is high as well.
- [31:35]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [31:36]
Paul Bryson
So. So it's relative.
- [31:38]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [31:39]
Paul Bryson
If you were to ask me how many pints of beer I can buy from my salary here versus at home, then for sure I could buy more here.
- [31:46]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [31:46]
Paul Bryson
Than I could in the uk.
- [31:47]
Cameron Herold
Okay. So this, the amount of earnings that you're getting locally, your disposable income is higher here.
- [31:54]
Paul Bryson
Should be. Well, thank you, but. Right.
- [31:55]
Cameron Herold
Most people come here to work because of taxation.
- [31:59]
Paul Bryson
Yes. Right. So can be the case that you would earn more money here than you would at home.
- [32:03]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Paul Bryson
Plus you're not paying the tax.
- [32:05]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [32:05]
Paul Bryson
So it's like a double hat. Right. There's, there's two kickers there. And most people come here to provide a better life for families at home.
- [32:14]
Cameron Herold
Let's say that somebody. Let's say somebody in the UK was making a hundred thousand dollars.
- [32:19]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [32:19]
Cameron Herold
For, for our listener. Because they're mostly North American. If you're earning a hundred thousand dollars in. What would you be earning at VirtueZone for the same kind of a job?
- [32:28]
Paul Bryson
Half. Yeah. No, no. Hard to say if you were looking at the uee, let's not say virtuism. But if you're looking at ue, well.
- [32:35]
Cameron Herold
That'S my next question was against UAE then.
- [32:36]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. If you look at the ue.
- [32:38]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [32:38]
Paul Bryson
You would earn more money here than you would there.
- [32:40]
Cameron Herold
Okay. So you're earning more money here than you are in other jobs in the uae. Is that part of your strategy? Buying up the talent, the virtue zones? Yeah, virtue zones.
- [32:49]
Paul Bryson
I would say that we pay, we pay pretty well for the market.
- [32:53]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [32:53]
Paul Bryson
And when I interview, because I don't.
- [32:56]
Cameron Herold
See this level of engagement and excitement of employee and like you can just tell that they're strong.
- [33:01]
Paul Bryson
So part of my recruitment strategies changed a little bit when I first came in, especially in that consultant role or that person that meets you and talks to you about the, about Dubai and why you should consider to buy. Previously I would have hired consultants or people who were used to doing business development or closing deals. Right. And teach them it's a very technical sale and it can take a year to get people up to speed.
- [33:30]
Cameron Herold
Sure.
- [33:30]
Paul Bryson
Using technical language jargon and not just using it. Understanding it and why it's there and there can be a lot of legal language as well. So I changed to start hiring from competitors or people from the market who had a bit of experience and sometimes that's good and it's bad because they can come in with preconceptions, they can come in with bad habits. It's very hard to change. I quite liked people coming in with a set of skills thinking, well, you've got those kind of skills there. I can teach you the products.
- [34:01]
Cameron Herold
Right, right.
- [34:02]
Paul Bryson
Teach anybody the products. That's not a problem, how to do it. But it can take a year to get you up to speed. So that's a year of investment. And I say we're working in that fast paced environment. Don't really have a year to get you up to speed, don't have time to work on projects. So yeah, we tend to hire from industry now. Yeah, often we pay a little bit better for people to jump. But also, you know, people do see it as okay if you're a footballer. It's like, okay, I'm playing for a big club.
- [34:29]
Cameron Herold
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [34:30]
Paul Bryson
And I'm playing for a big name in the market. I've got that brand behind me. I've got the tools to do the job. Great office. These get, you know, vertison of marketing. You know, we really are a market machine. We generate 4,000 inquiries a month from across the world. So imagine you're a salesperson or consultant and we are sending you, there's 4,000 inquiries.
- [34:49]
Cameron Herold
Well and I can imagine the woman who connected me with you, Maria, said she's been here seven years as well. And I don't imagine you have very high turnover, employee turnover.
- [35:00]
Paul Bryson
No.
- [35:02]
Cameron Herold
Is it pretty low?
- [35:03]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [35:03]
Cameron Herold
So fair point has, I guess people, people don't quit. You probably fire the underperformers. But I don't, I can't see a lot of people quitting once they're here.
- [35:11]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, no, that's fear. And you know, sometimes for the underperformers. We're not, we're not always. Yeah, look, it's great. Not you don't want to have them in your team. Right. Because they can really bring down the mood energy of other people. Like a cancer and we try and cut them out. And I've used that phrase like a cancer before and the best way to deal with it is to cut out and remove it. And we tend to remove it. People become, you know, underperforming, start getting toxic, start bringing down and affected. The top performers will always be the top performers. But you've got these mid performers as well, yeah. And these, these cancers underneath them can, can affect these people.
- [35:49]
Cameron Herold
Well, and that's faster than they can.
- [35:51]
Paul Bryson
Affect the top performer.
- [35:52]
Cameron Herold
The mid players are solid. I don't mind that I always say the A players are the racehorses.
- [35:56]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [35:56]
Cameron Herold
The B players are the workhorses and the C players we have to send to the glue factory.
- [36:01]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Okay.
- [36:02]
Cameron Herold
But I don't mind having a team of workhorses with a bunch of A's, you know, that work.
- [36:06]
Paul Bryson
We've done an exercise, actually, we do some accidental training with some people and we've done an exercise recently where we looked at a lot of metrics of people performance from a sales standpoint. It was people that patched big revenue that closed loads of deals or not a lot of deals. There was loads of metrics in there. But the number that came back better was. The question was, would you rather hire the closer? And there's loads of facts about The Closer or Mr. Efficient. Right. And everyone's like, close it, close it. The answer was Mr. Efficient delivers more revenue over the year.
- [36:38]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Paul Bryson
Because consistency. Right. And. And you wouldn't have thought that unless you went deep dive in it. But you need the star player as well.
- [36:46]
Cameron Herold
I heard another interesting. I heard a data point the other day that the square root of the number of your employees produce 50% of your output. So if you have 250 employees, it's 15 people produce 50% of the output.
- [36:58]
Paul Bryson
So you're spot on with us. Amongst three. Let's say we've got three big revenue teams.
- [37:03]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [37:04]
Paul Bryson
The biggest one has 24 people. Of the 24 people, five or six.
- [37:10]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. And this isn't even just revenue. It could be operations, finance.
- [37:15]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. So.
- [37:16]
Cameron Herold
So these are the. God forbid they ever quit. Right. These are the star players. How do you handcuff them? How do you keep them?
- [37:23]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, it's a good one. Well, they're probably listening to this. I can't say I don't want them to know.
- [37:27]
Cameron Herold
No, no. Because I think, I think it's good to say. I think it's good for them to know, actually.
- [37:30]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. No, it's important. I think, I think the star players know that the star players.
- [37:33]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [37:34]
Paul Bryson
Know how much we, we rely on them, how much we want them. They're not only remunerated financially, they have some freedoms that other people don't have.
- [37:43]
Cameron Herold
You care about them.
- [37:44]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. And I think it's important to show that and that that's again, that's all part of that cultural wellness thing.
- [37:49]
Cameron Herold
What's interesting, you, you walked in to do this podcast, and you kind of had a jacket on. You're like, I don't want to wear this jacket. I'm like, I didn't want you to wear the jacket. Like, you seem like a very approachable, very human leader. Is that part of how you keep people and is that part of Virtue Zone, do you think?
- [38:05]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, I would say allowing people to get close to you, connect to you, understand you. You understand them as well, and not.
- [38:12]
Cameron Herold
Just their birthday, but, like, getting to know them.
- [38:14]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, I think that helps you. We spoke about motivation, I think, before we went on air, before we started recording. And that's part of it, you know, if you understand your people individually, you can get more out of them. If you really understand who they are and you know they will want to work for you. Yeah, they find you that leader. But true what you say, a high percentage of the output comes from a small percentage of the people. And often, if we need that extra effort, that extra boost, if we've got deadlines and things coming up, the natural thing, you know, people look at is, well, let's go to these poor performers. They're doing so bad. Let's push them to get something. So difficult to get. Yeah, you get stuff out of the poor performer.
- [38:51]
Cameron Herold
No, you don't.
- [38:52]
Paul Bryson
It's easier to go to the top performer.
- [38:54]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [38:54]
Paul Bryson
Get a little bit more out of there.
- [38:55]
Cameron Herold
Do you burn out the top performers? Do you burn people out at all? Because I know you do that high performance culture.
- [39:00]
Paul Bryson
No, but we have to ask them to kind of have a reality check from time to time and. And assess themselves. You know, when they need a break. We get to. Sometimes we're at that point in the year. Right. We're getting to the end of the year, and a lot of the top performers have got loads of annual leave left. Right. And I've said you need to be using it properly. Okay. Don't just forget about it and take the odd day here and there. If you've got five weeks a year, which is ourselves.
- [39:30]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. I was gonna ask. Is five weeks.
- [39:32]
Paul Bryson
Five weeks are standard. I think four is the norm. Right. Okay. So five weeks.
- [39:35]
Cameron Herold
I've always said five weeks, including your sick time, and take it second time.
- [39:40]
Paul Bryson
Is a pet peeve for me.
- [39:42]
Cameron Herold
I know. Because if you're a healthy person, you don't have sick time, but then you.
- [39:45]
Paul Bryson
Have five weeks, you're not sick enough to come your work and do your job. Right. But we're getting to the end of the year and people have three weeks before weeks Leave life. Okay. They haven't used it all. What I tend to say is try and take a week. Obviously some people you need two weeks. In the summer you'll be somewhere to go with family.
- [40:01]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [40:01]
Paul Bryson
But you want to be taking some time off every quarter.
- [40:04]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [40:04]
Paul Bryson
Every three months. But if you were to break it down, that would be good. A good enough time for you to be off and recharge your batteries and come back ready to go. Good thing about ue, loads of public holidays.
- [40:15]
Cameron Herold
I was going to say. So. So in Canada, the United States, we have the public holidays are traditionally a Friday or a Monday. So it gives you a three day weekend. Is that kind of a similar level?
- [40:23]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, we're quite lucky. We get way more than we do in the uk.
- [40:26]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [40:27]
Paul Bryson
And kind of the US I think we get way more as well.
- [40:29]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [40:30]
Paul Bryson
Sometimes it's a bit of a gamble. You know, we're kind of hoping they're not always based on. None of them are really based on Gregorian calendar dates.
- [40:37]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [40:38]
Paul Bryson
So they could be lunar holidays.
- [40:39]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [40:40]
Paul Bryson
So depending on when the moon falls.
- [40:41]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [40:42]
Paul Bryson
We could be on a Saturday, Sunday, and that's a disaster. Okay. So people tend to be researching that early in the year, hoping that it's gonna. If it looks like it's going to fall on a Wednesday, you're good.
- [40:52]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [40:52]
Paul Bryson
Because it's definitely going to be the Tuesday or the Thursday. Right. So people tend to look at that and we're just hoping that it's going to fall midweek when we want the time off. If you're a business leader, you're looking at hope and it's not on the weekend so that we can get ext.
- [41:05]
Cameron Herold
How about maternity leave? What's the. The UAE's position or virtue zone's position on maternity leave?
- [41:11]
Paul Bryson
UAE, 45 days.
- [41:13]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [41:13]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. So it's 45 days for mother. Paternity leave was never a thing. This has been introduced in five days. I was talking to a friend in the UK and he said he can get six months.
- [41:26]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. Same as Canada. It's weird.
- [41:28]
Paul Bryson
And he can take it any time in the first two years.
- [41:30]
Cameron Herold
Wow.
- [41:30]
Paul Bryson
So it doesn't even start. It can just take six months.
- [41:33]
Cameron Herold
That's crazy, right? Yeah. And Philippe, which is so 45 days is 45 days.
- [41:39]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [41:39]
Cameron Herold
But we feel short.
- [41:41]
Paul Bryson
We as, as we. We've. I'm looking back faster.
- [41:45]
Cameron Herold
Well, in the US is about the same. Feels short.
- [41:47]
Paul Bryson
But in the UK it's common for people to take it here.
- [41:49]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [41:50]
Paul Bryson
And they, you know, she took the year she Took the, the maternity leave plus you can then take a longer period and 50 salary and the whole time will last about a year.
- [41:59]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [42:00]
Paul Bryson
Okay. And. But it's hard for the company.
- [42:03]
Cameron Herold
It is very hard for the company. It's hard when you're, it's hard when you're a 30 person company. It's not as hard when you're 250. You have a little bit more coverage as you grow.
- [42:11]
Paul Bryson
Depends on. Yeah. The role as well. We've, we've had a few, we've had a few pregnancies in the last, in the last few years and sometimes people want to come back quickly.
- [42:20]
Cameron Herold
Do you have anybody working remote? Are you all in office? All in office, yeah. It feels like that has to be the culture.
- [42:28]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. What I have noticed is the more you know, Gen Z's that come for interviews do mention more that it's really, really important for them. It's the flexibility thing. For me it was never the case but if I wanted to, I don't want the flexibility thing for me if I take that, that you know, work from home one day it's purely to perhaps catch up with some admin.
- [42:51]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [42:51]
Paul Bryson
That I've not been able to do because I'm spending a lot of face to face.
- [42:54]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. For Gen Z it's just because they can't wrap their head around 40 hour work weeks. What's the work week in the UAE or at VirtueZone?
- [43:01]
Paul Bryson
It's certainly longer.
- [43:03]
Cameron Herold
Is it five days or is it five and a half?
- [43:05]
Paul Bryson
Five. Yeah. Five common. Five common. But we have group support staff that there's somewhere in the office all day. Right. So we have back of house guys that access our company. Live chat and company WhatsApp accounts. These run 24 7. Always manage. Right. Always man. And there's always one or two people there. So they work in shifts. They get their days off as well the two days off but they work in shifts. So you've always got access to someone anywhere you are in the world you can speak to us.
- [43:32]
Cameron Herold
But the normal staff person.
- [43:34]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Well I would just say I work a normal week but I'm like 8:30 to 8:30.
- [43:40]
Cameron Herold
You are wow, that's long.
- [43:42]
Paul Bryson
That's my choice. Right. Because no, if I was to leave at 6 o'clock I'd probably need to set traffic for an hour and 20.
- [43:49]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [43:50]
Paul Bryson
If I leave at 7:30 or 8 I need to start driving. Half an hour only I'm driving.
- [43:53]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [43:53]
Paul Bryson
I'm driving the street for half an hour so I'd rather use that egg floor, just it, just to work. And when people leave, either I like to, if I'm here early or late, usually it's late. Now if I'm here late when people leave the office, it gives me the opportunity. Get your work done, do loads in an hour and a half. Yeah, that would probably take me four.
- [44:10]
Cameron Herold
Hours to get done because are most people like 9 to 5 or 8.
- [44:14]
Paul Bryson
To 6 is our 8, 30 to 6 is our operating hours. We tweaked it a little better for the revenue teams for the consultants to speak to clients. So some of them do 11, eight. So there's someone obviously between eight and eight. So there's like eight fives, nine sixes, 10 fours and then 11, you know that 10.
- [44:35]
Cameron Herold
Where do you find employees? I mean, in North America, there's the executive recruiters, there's social media like Facebook and stuff. Where do you find good people here? Well, through friends, through referrals.
- [44:45]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. The first thing is, the one change that I've noticed in Dubai since I've been here is the local market is full of talent. Now before, like when I came here, companies had to. And, well, before I came here, companies had to pay you to come and interview.
- [45:01]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [45:01]
Paul Bryson
Never mind to take a job, pay you to interview, pay your hotel. Then when you came here, we'll have to pay your house, pay your electricity bills. Now there's this great talent pool, right. The market's big for us. So if we, we tend to recruit from, from local markets, same industry, okay. If we don't recruit from the same industry, particularly from a consultant standpoint or a bd, a business development manager standpoint, the closest thing would maybe look at would be some sort of financial services company, you know, where there's been some young, hungry people in there with some sales skills. Maybe they're not quite making it, but they've got loads of ability and selling ability. But you know how ruthless, right, financial advisory can be here. So if they've got that, then, then we can teach them. You know, if they've got that natural skill set or that skill set that they've already built, we can teach them the product. So this is definitely a local market. Very rarely will we recruit from abroad.
- [45:57]
Cameron Herold
I've, I've run an organization for years now called the COO Alliance. So I have this, this large network of second commands. And we've talked about if you can grow your companies or grow your clients companies, if you can help your clients grow, your clients will buy more from you. Does VirtueZone do anything to help I mean you guys have got thousands of clients. Do you do anything to help your clients grow?
- [46:19]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Good.
- [46:20]
Cameron Herold
Like training programs, bringing in speakers, plugging them in with resources.
- [46:25]
Paul Bryson
So not from the training programs of the speaker standpoint, but we have a. We've got. That was one of our. One of our big. I said we did covert. Well, one of our big things was we created this online marketplace for clients where clients buy from each other.
- [46:39]
Cameron Herold
Oh, nice.
- [46:40]
Paul Bryson
Right. You know, people weren't doing so much business so we said look, let's put you all together, come up with an offer for other clients. You put them all in one place and let them work under that.
- [46:50]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [46:50]
Paul Bryson
Virtual umbrella. Because we're such a huge marketing machine, we often will partner with clients, run offers for that client. So you know, if you've got as.
- [47:00]
Cameron Herold
An affiliate, like what you get a percentage?
- [47:03]
Paul Bryson
Depends.
- [47:04]
Cameron Herold
Depends.
- [47:05]
Paul Bryson
Maybe barter or something. Maybe do an affiliate thing. Maybe splat, you know, some fees, whatever.
- [47:11]
Cameron Herold
Right. I used to run the largest barter company in North America.
- [47:15]
Paul Bryson
I don't mind the barter. I love barter. It works for me.
- [47:18]
Cameron Herold
Usually we had 30000 companies bartering in our. With our currency.
- [47:22]
Paul Bryson
The thing is when you're butter and if you're getting something from someone that if I'm giving you something that might not cost me a lot to deliver it.
- [47:28]
Cameron Herold
Correct.
- [47:28]
Paul Bryson
It should cost me a lot to cost you a lot to buy it.
- [47:31]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [47:31]
Paul Bryson
And you're trying to give me something the same equivalent that might not cost you as much to make. You know, I always find the barter quite interesting. Especially when it's at professional services. Yeah, you know, it's a professional services. But yeah, we, we've got a huge client base, We've got a huge database. So we can go out. So if we were to partner with a client, we can go out to a database and put an offer from that client.
- [47:51]
Cameron Herold
How many clients do you have? Ballpark?
- [47:54]
Paul Bryson
We're renewing about six and a half thousand companies a year.
- [47:58]
Cameron Herold
A year.
- [47:59]
Paul Bryson
Right. That we renew and we onboard a lot of companies during the year who perhaps just come for one time transactions. But we're very much that subscriptions business. It's good to have you continually seeing that value that you'll renew your company, you'll do your accounting and bookkeeping. So six and a half thousand say from when you're a company standpoint and about getting close to the 6000 hours.
- [48:23]
Cameron Herold
For account for setting up and some.
- [48:25]
Paul Bryson
Of them will be overlap but on that accounting side loads of them are not virtual Clients. But what that does give is now virtues on the opportunity to say to that person, yeah, look, we're doing your accountant taxation. Why don't we just renew your company?
- [48:39]
Cameron Herold
Exactly.
- [48:41]
Paul Bryson
Run your mailing addresses, all that kind of stuff.
- [48:44]
Cameron Herold
So do you look at your company or your client's lifetime value? Is that part of your marketing strategy? Like understanding the lifetime value of a client, the cost of acquisition?
- [48:51]
Paul Bryson
Maybe not from a marketing standpoint, but we look at that from a budget standpoint.
- [48:55]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [48:55]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, we tend to look at that and often now we are. It's common to sell multi year licenses. Suppliants will come as set up a company and then maybe either renewal or set up. They'll, you know, they'll say, yeah, let's do five years. Let's do a five year license, five year visa. I don't need one. I'm saving money. I'm protected against government price increases and changes in legislation. I don't need to do any paperwork.
- [49:20]
Cameron Herold
Right.
- [49:20]
Paul Bryson
Every single year.
- [49:21]
Cameron Herold
Well, and with the golden. The golden visa is a 10 year visa and you don't technically have to come here during that period either, Is that correct?
- [49:27]
Paul Bryson
You need to come out of the country for at least one day every year.
- [49:29]
Cameron Herold
Oh, so you still do too? Okay.
- [49:31]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, you need to just enter. You can enter an exit, but on.
- [49:34]
Cameron Herold
A normal visa you have to come in once every six months.
- [49:36]
Paul Bryson
180 days. Yes.
- [49:37]
Cameron Herold
Okay. Oh, so that's the difference. Well, I don't have to come in the summer then you can't use it.
- [49:41]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, your visa cancels now. You don't need. Are you, what are you on?
- [49:44]
Cameron Herold
I'm on a normal visa right now, but I've got the application in for Golden.
- [49:47]
Paul Bryson
Yeah, then you can avoid it. The summer.
- [49:50]
Cameron Herold
Yeah, because June sucks here.
- [49:52]
Paul Bryson
July, August, great. But good, you know, you get great deals.
- [49:58]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [49:58]
Paul Bryson
You go to stay in any hotel you want, it's not going to cost you money.
- [50:00]
Cameron Herold
Well, you can get on the golf course, no problem if you can handle 125 degrees.
- [50:04]
Paul Bryson
I used to handle it a lot and I don't do it in the summer at all now.
- [50:07]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. What's next for VirtueZone? Where do you take the company from here?
- [50:10]
Paul Bryson
Good question. I think, I think 25 is a big year for us as we, you know, we're always pushing growth, continually growing as a business. We're probably, you know, we're in the process of. So we run a couple of the free zones.
- [50:24]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [50:25]
Paul Bryson
Okay. So actually in house, we, we provide the ops for the free zone because you know, perhaps government entities can't, can't operate as slick as, as private sector so. Oh, probably that's something that we look at is it's really growing that free zone partnership and showing the free zones value and having our operations.
- [50:45]
Cameron Herold
So they can sell it and you guys operate it.
- [50:47]
Paul Bryson
Yeah.
- [50:47]
Cameron Herold
Interesting.
- [50:48]
Paul Bryson
Everyone can sell it, we can operate it. You know.
- [50:49]
Cameron Herold
Interesting.
- [50:50]
Paul Bryson
Every other competitor and corporate service provider can, can sell it.
- [50:54]
Cameron Herold
It's almost like a back office for all of these. Yeah. That's interesting. The accountant, taxation, things like that's going to be huge. Yeah. And it also feel, it feels like the UAE now, the time is now. Like it's no longer this like get offshore hustle thing. Now it's like let's really run legit companies here. We can be anywhere.
- [51:14]
Paul Bryson
Real estate feels safe saying that for about 10 years.
- [51:17]
Cameron Herold
Like have you.
- [51:18]
Paul Bryson
It's the perfect time. It's perfect. And every time I'm saying that it's like it's better than it was before. Yeah, yeah.
- [51:23]
Cameron Herold
I'm seeing it feels stable here now.
- [51:26]
Paul Bryson
We're a good aggregator. We're also a good barometer on the market. And I have never seen as many trade licenses being issued as there are now. I've never seen as many visas being processed. Certainly never seen as many golden visas. It's just peaking, right.
- [51:41]
Cameron Herold
It feels like that.
- [51:42]
Paul Bryson
And the golden visa is great. It's another brilliant initiative by the leadership of the country to, to keep people here longer.
- [51:48]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [51:48]
Paul Bryson
Okay.
- [51:48]
Cameron Herold
And the right people.
- [51:49]
Paul Bryson
It's an honor to be here. Right. You know.
- [51:51]
Cameron Herold
Oh yeah.
- [51:52]
Paul Bryson
That's what you want people to remember. Honored to be here. Let's keep people here. Rather than. People tend to leave the country when visas expire.
- [52:00]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [52:00]
Paul Bryson
So usually they'll let it go and say at the end of that.
- [52:02]
Cameron Herold
Well, and there's also the pain in the ass factor. I call it the PETA factor. It's just like why do I keep having to do this? Like why can't you just give me like, you know in the United States I was on a green card, it was 10 years. Like give me some.
- [52:13]
Paul Bryson
Well, they're getting there. Right. And as corporate tax, you know, as their VAT is there, why not keep people here longer? Paying vat, paying road toll fees, paying school fees, paying.
- [52:25]
Cameron Herold
Oh yeah, they get us. There are some other taxes for sure.
- [52:27]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. And I'm happy to pay them.
- [52:29]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [52:29]
Paul Bryson
I'm more actually more than happy to pay them.
- [52:32]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [52:32]
Paul Bryson
I was home recently and how often.
- [52:34]
Cameron Herold
Do you get the photo speeding tickets? I get one every trip.
- [52:40]
Paul Bryson
I've got 5 unpaid at the moment.
- [52:43]
Cameron Herold
I got. I got one in Abu Dhabi where I was using my phone to look at a map, and they got me for using my cell phone like I was using a map. Curious about you and your growth. I got a couple more questions before we wrap, but where have you had to focus as a leader in terms of your growth?
- [52:56]
Paul Bryson
My own personal.
- [52:57]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. Or your. Yeah. Your own business growth?
- [53:00]
Paul Bryson
I think one thing I've had to realize, as you know, the hardest thing for me was learning how to manage people and thinking everybody's the same as you and everybody's motivated by the same things and has the same knowledge. And it's being. Being tolerant that people don't have that knowledge because. Yes. You're older, you've been doing it longer. You can't just expect them to do everything.
- [53:22]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [53:22]
Paul Bryson
So it's. It's been tolerant with that learning that has allowed me to grow as a leader because it lets me see that not everyone's the same. Some people are way advanced and ahead of me. And also, I've always been. What I would say I've always been the guy. Right. That. That if someone wants to know, how long does this take? How much does this cost? Where's the best place to go? I would always say. I genuinely would always say I am the best person in Dubai to speak to about this. Right. When I was at the. The height of being a consultant.
- [53:53]
Cameron Herold
Okay.
- [53:54]
Paul Bryson
Being. Not being the guy was quite difficult.
- [53:57]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [53:58]
Paul Bryson
I started managing people in house, and then I need to go to them.
- [54:01]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [54:01]
Paul Bryson
And say, how long does that take? What's the correct activity to get a government approval for this? I used to just know. He's like, right. And I would be the one. Right.
- [54:10]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [54:11]
Paul Bryson
Losing that. Trying to stay in the trenches as.
- [54:14]
Cameron Herold
Much as possible, but being okay with losing that because they've got it.
- [54:17]
Paul Bryson
Yeah. Yeah. And that. That took me. That took me a while to see that because, you know, and George, the group CEO, has been taught me really well on that because, you know, he. He told me, just let the ego go. You know, just. Just leave that and don't think about that and surround yourself with people. You know, the old Richard Branson thing about surrounding yourself is cheesy. Right.
- [54:37]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [54:38]
Paul Bryson
Surround yourself with people that are better than you.
- [54:39]
Cameron Herold
That's true.
- [54:40]
Paul Bryson
Kind of stuff. But you don't realize at the start, you think, why would I do that? These people are going to be threats to me. And then you realize, oh, my God, I need these people to deliver. Otherwise I can't deliver on my goals and visions for the company.
- [54:53]
Cameron Herold
Well, it sounds like both of those are tied to emotional intelligence and the first is also tied to some situational leadership. So it's the ability to lead people differently, but also the emotional intelligence that people are different, they learn differently, they think differently and that it's okay to let go.
- [55:08]
Paul Bryson
And there's things that are important to people that you may think, my God, that's that why are you bothered about this?
- [55:14]
Cameron Herold
Right. But they are. Yeah.
- [55:15]
Paul Bryson
And you need to realize that and manage that accordingly as well. You think you want to say to them just again, move on, it's not important, but it is. So you need to, need to give them time to, to get over to or to see it through a different set of eyes. And that's another skill in itself is as to be able to bring people right to your way of thinking when they are very much set in their ways.
- [55:38]
Cameron Herold
Well, and also us getting around to their way of thinking so we can understand it a bit too, right?
- [55:42]
Paul Bryson
Totally, totally true. That's another thing George and I worked, worked really closely on that was understanding people, what makes them tick, what drives them and how also you might not always, you might not always agree with them, but, well, you want them to see that you agree or think that you agree with them that. To give them that peace.
- [56:01]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [56:02]
Paul Bryson
Rather than continually saying no, that's not right, you're doing that wrongly. But you know, it's such a fine line. Such a fine line. But I'd say that's one thing that we're continually trying to do. Emotional intelligence, you talk about there. I guess it's a very much, it's a popular phrase at the moment, so prevalent for us.
- [56:20]
Cameron Herold
Well, I think that's what happens with wisdom. I think, I think the problem for a lot of the Gen Z and younger Gen Y is they haven't been around business long enough to allow the emotional intelligence to kick in yet. And, and this kind of leads into my final question too. If we you were to lean back and give yourself, you know, your 21 year old, Paul Bryson, some advice because you didn't have the wisdom back then, you had the confidence and the charisma maybe, what advice would you give the younger you?
- [56:45]
Paul Bryson
You know, I think about that kind of stuff often. Like what, what I would have done differently. And in certain situations I would always say that when I was younger and George might say I still am, I was stubborn to the extent that it was my way or it wasn't happening. But Only when I started managing people and not managing myself that I realized that sometimes my way is not always the most efficient, not always the most correct. And I should seek advice from people who are subject matter experts. Even though you think you know the best way to do something, there'll be someone. If you go granular, there's someone who's actually an expert on that one small thing. And they can really give you advice and learn from people. In fact, what you've actually just made me realize, and I do feel this often, is when I was 21, I think 20. I don't know if I was 21, but I was certainly my early 20s. I remember having two managers in the UK, right. And I had one manager that I loved and I had one guy that I absolutely detested. Hated him. Right. I wouldn't name him, say where he was now. Hated him and just worked, almost nightmare. Everyone was difficult and everything that he done, I hated. Now, flip side, the other guy, the manager that I liked, he was easy going. He never gave me development.
- [58:07]
Cameron Herold
Right, right.
- [58:08]
Paul Bryson
It was easy going. We had pints together.
- [58:10]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [58:10]
Paul Bryson
I never learned it.
- [58:11]
Cameron Herold
He didn't grow.
- [58:12]
Paul Bryson
It was easy to work with.
- [58:12]
Cameron Herold
Yeah. Yeah.
- [58:13]
Paul Bryson
The other guy who was so difficult, really improved some of my skills. He's made me the guy that. So if people are calling in sick to work, I'll ask them, what's wrong with me? How come you're sick? And they'll tell me and I'll say, just take a couple of paracetamol, go to bed for two hours, come in, you know, And I used to, when this guy gave me this chat when I was 21, I would be like, oh, my God, give me a break. I just need a day off, you know?
- [58:35]
Cameron Herold
Yeah.
- [58:36]
Paul Bryson
But I realized that, that he was doing a job. He was, he was, he was just doing his job. He was driving a business. He was. He was super successful for results. And I thought, you know what, looking back, I remember thinking I hated that guy. Maybe I didn't like the way he approached, but I was different then. But I really learned he wasn't a bad person. And I was actually picking up skills from him. It sounds like you got a phone call from him.
- [58:57]
Cameron Herold
Sounds like you have a phone call to make or drop. Drop my. Thank you.
- [59:02]
Paul Bryson
There's been loads of people. What I mean is, I'm in situations when I'm younger that I. That I don't like. I realize now why people said what they said and why they did what they did. And I hope that people see that when they're dealing with me, instead of thinking, you know, Paul's hard to work with, or, you know, he's pushing me so hard for this. But really, I'm trying to make them elite, really trying to make them elite in their field, rather than trying to make things difficult.
- [59:27]
Cameron Herold
I like it. Paul Bryson, managing director for VirtueZone, thanks very much for sharing with us today. I appreciate it.
- [59:32]
Paul Bryson
Thank you very much. That was awesome.
- [59:33]
Cameron Herold
Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it.
- [59:37]
Paul Bryson
You've been listening to Second in Command.
- [59:40]
Cameron Herold
Brought to you by COO alliance founder Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to.
- [59:47]
Paul Bryson
Us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading.
- [59:54]
Cameron Herold
COOs, visit COOAlliance.com SA.