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- [00:00]
Lindsay Anderson
Hey everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. Today I'm really excited about our topic. We're talking about outsourcing to VAs now as we help consultants and coaches and service based experts like you. Having a VA to do a lot of those marketing and sales tasks is critical for you being able to scale your online business. What happens when you start to outsource? What kind of tasks should you be outsourcing? And I have a really amazing outsourcing expert here today called Ms. Valerie Bowden. Now, I work with Valerie at her company Cradle and I'm so excited to introduce her to you today as we dive into this world of outsourcing VAs and really generating A's that will allow you to build and monetize your business. Before we hop into this episode, this episode is brought to you by my agency, the BAM Agency, where my team and I help business owners turn social media into a sales machine. If you're ready for a custom strategy that drives results, book a free session by going to Lindsaya.com apply and schedule a free social media strategy session with me. Now let's hop into our guest episode with Ms. Valerie Bowden.
- [01:24]
Are you ready for next level growth in your business? Welcome to the Lindsay Anderson show where we pull back the curtain on the exact strategies, tools and mindsets that build million dollar empires. If you're hungry for more time, more freedom and a whole lot more impact, you've come to the right place. Buckle up because we're about to ignite your business journey. Now here's Lindsay Foreign.
- [01:58]
This episode is brought to you by the BAM Agency. Done for you. Social media that actually drives results, not just likes, but high ticket sales. If you're ready to turn your content into a client generating machine, grab a free strategy session. Call by heading over to Lindsaya.com/Apply.
- [02:22]
My guest today is Ms. Valerie Bowden, founder of Cradle, a company that helps business owners find a top tier remote marketing and sales talent from Africa. Before launching Cradle, Valerie backpacked across Africa solo and lived in Ethiopia for eight years. Today she helps businesses build lean, effective teams without sacrificing quality. Valerie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on.
- [02:47]
Valerie Bowden
Thanks for having me here. I'm so excited to be here.
- [02:50]
Lindsay Anderson
So tell me a little bit about how you got involved in this work.
- [02:55]
Valerie Bowden
Well, I had, like you mentioned, I had backpacked across Africa when I was 25, had an amazing time. I was living in Ethiopia and I started working for a US outsourcing company and that was the first time That I knew that big companies like Fortune 500 companies were building sales and marketing teams in Africa. You think of India, the Philippines, other traditional outsourcing countries that I did not know is happening in Africa. I love the work. But soon I realized a lot of these large companies just weren't really paying the Ethiopians very well and they didn't really have a career path for them and it was very hush hush. We were under like a lot of NDAs. Not to say that they had teams in Africa and didn't like it. So fast forward a few years, I moved back to America. I decided to start my own company called Cradle and I wanted to do it better. So we focus a lot more on paying people better, creating better paths for them and just being like a good win win. Especially for sales and marketing teams here.
- [03:45]
Lindsay Anderson
In the U.S. i like that. Let's talk a little bit about. A lot of businesses are really miss out on getting good quality bas because they're only focused on hiring people in the us what are they missing out on not thinking more globally about hiring for those roles.
- [04:01]
Valerie Bowden
I think the biggest reason why people want to outsource is because of the cost. It is much more cost effective to hire overseas. So that makes your profit margin better. And I think most small and medium businesses, they just would not hire because they wouldn't have the money to hire an American person. So it doesn't get done or the founder takes it on. So I think one of the best reasons why to Offshore is you can really build your team and grow your brand but at a rate that you can afford.
- [04:25]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah, it's true and it's true and I like that you do the win win too. So it's not only serving you, it serves others on the globe. So there's a lot of different options when it comes to outsourcing. I'm sure you're aware of fiber, fiber and upwork and like all of these. Can you tell me the difference between your offering and kind of what those other services offer?
- [04:46]
Valerie Bowden
Great question and there's no wrong answer. It's really based on what you want. So if you have a one time project that's two hours, I would do upworks. Like that's perfectly fine. If you want an actual team member that you're going to know, build a relationship with that you might put client facing. That's when you don't want just like a freelancer that you met on one of those platforms. You really want to hire someone that you can integrate into your team and then that's when a company like mine or any other outsourcing company fills that gap.
- [05:10]
Lindsay Anderson
Makes sense. Now, a lot of the tasks that people like to outsource, of course, are marketing and sales. And this can really elevate a business and bring in more high quality leads and those sort of things. What do you think that people really misunderstand about hiring remote team members for sales and marketing roles?
- [05:25]
Valerie Bowden
I think the first thing they miss out on is that they think there's going to be bad accents. So I think a lot of reasons why people don't hire, let's say offshore cold callers is because we've all had that horrible experience with an offshore cool color that you don't understand. And so I think people have to understand that there's just like anywhere in the world there's good talent and there's bad talent. So just because you've had bad experiences overseas doesn't mean you will again. And I think another misconception is just not understanding what, you know, what AI should do versus outsource versus someone internal. And so I always say cold calling is an offshore job. You don't want someone with an American salary spending all day cold calling for your sales team because half the time they're going to be leaving voicemails or getting the wrong number, the wrong person. So that's a job where you want to make sure that's outsourced because that's more of an affordable rate. And then the outsourced person should be booking those calls for your sales team and your American expensive sales reps. All they have to do is show up and close the deal and so can.
- [06:21]
Lindsay Anderson
You expand a little bit more. How do we know what jobs are appropriate to outsource? What do we need to know about these jobs we outsource before we actually outsource them?
- [06:29]
Valerie Bowden
Great question. I always start with a time audit personally, whether that's you or like your sales team or marketing team. And you can really look at it and be like, okay, what can only I do? Like only I can jump on a podcast and talk about my company, but anyone overseas can actually book that meeting for me and book podcasts for me as an example. Or again, like maybe you are a company and you have to go in person. So you do need like a physical sales rep to go in person to your clients business. Right? But anybody can call and book that appointment and set it up for you. So really just understanding what can you do and only you do, and then make sure that everything else is delegated or put on an offshore team member.
- [07:07]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay, what is the biggest mistake that you see a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners make when they hire overseas?
- [07:14]
Valerie Bowden
Lack of training. It's like you really expect someone that doesn't know you or your industry very well to be perfect on day one. So I have an example. We had a client who hired three sales reps from us. He spent an hour a day training them. And then after six weeks, I think he had generated $100,000 in new revenue, but it's because he had spent the time training. And then we have some clients, they just give a list on day one and they expect that person to make calls and book appointments. That person knows nothing even about them, about the business, and doesn't even have time to ask them questions. And then those clients, clients never get as good of results. So you definitely have to train and on board even more than you would with a US based team, I think.
- [07:55]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay, and what's your recommendation for doing that? Is it to be spending an hour a day with this person as you're onboarding? What are we talking on Slack? Are we doing some zoom? What's a good outline for that?
- [08:05]
Valerie Bowden
It depends. So the client I mentioned, he hired three reps that were full time. So an hour a day. Fantastic. And by the way, he did record those meetings, so he's hiring more with us. And those new reps will probably listen to the recordings. So it does get better over time. And if you're hiring someone for two hours a day, maybe it's like a 20 minute check in call the first week every single day and then maybe you can space it out further. Or maybe before they start doing things, they're sending you screenshots before, like that email, that marketing email gets sent. You can kind of space it out slowly, but I think especially the first couple of weeks, daily check ins are great. And also adding them to your team calls too. So it doesn't just have to be you with them. You can add them to your company call and integrate them like any other team member and then you'll get amazing results.
- [08:46]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. Okay. So in terms of marketing and sales and outsourcing, those kind of jobs, can you give me some examples what people outsource successfully?
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Valerie Bowden
Definitely. Okay, so when it comes to marketing, it could be anything between booking you guest podcasts, helping you with social media, whether that's uploading content, helping you record the content, video editing, it could be leaving comments for you, adding people to your network. When it comes to sales, it's mostly lead generation. And that Initial cold calling role, that that is probably most appropriate.
- [09:18]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay. And you need to go in with those scripts. You need to be like how you want to be saying those things to people. And it's basically like they're any other employee. You've got to train them, you have to have SOPs, they have to know what to say. And this is like the biggest mistake people will make.
- [09:34]
Valerie Bowden
Exactly. I think the strategy should come from you. The script should come to you, come from you. Because you know what your clients would resonate with the most now, after a week or two, if you're looking at your numbers and you're saying like, okay, all these people are picking up but no one's booking the call. Okay, maybe the script does need to be adjusted. Maybe you need to give them some ability to get off script a little bit. But in the beginning, most things should come from you and then you can tweak as you go along.
- [09:58]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay. And so they're making cold calls, they're providing you with the phone numbers. Or do you have VAS that will go find phone numbers of your ideal client and do some data mining? Both.
- [10:09]
Valerie Bowden
Yeah. Most of our clients do just give us a giant list, but we have some, maybe it's not big, like huge volume, but they will hire someone to do lead gen for them. And so they'll get on LinkedIn, they'll find a list and they run that through Apollo, then they get phone numbers and then they'll have them call as well. That's cool, because the person who does all that lead generation probably knows so many things about that person that by the time they do the phone call, they can have a warmer conversation.
- [10:31]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay, so I'm gonna have you break that down a little. I find that process real interesting. So you say, here's my ideal client. They will go out on LinkedIn, they'll find that person, they'll follow them on social media. Will they send a DM and try to get a phone call? Is that what you say is next?
- [10:45]
Valerie Bowden
You can do that or sometimes you can use Apollo I.O. to like put in someone's name and it will give you their email, their cell phone number. You could call them that way. But kind of a two prong approach is great. Like you could have them get on your LinkedIn, send them a message from your LinkedIn and then the person could call and like kind of that two pronged approach works really well. Or maybe they call, they couldn't get ahold of them, so then they log into your LinkedIn and they're like, hey, I think my team member tried to reach out to you. No worries. I'd love to hop on a call with you. And sometimes that approach works really well.
- [11:16]
Lindsay Anderson
When you're putting names into Apollo and you're getting these phone numbers and then you're just calling people after finding them on LinkedIn. What's the pitch there? They're calling to set up a meeting or what's your next step on that?
- [11:26]
Valerie Bowden
Great question. So some people, you could set up a meeting and sometimes it's better to offer something. So when we call for medical appointments at doctor's offices, we usually offer a lunch and learn. So that way they get lunch out of it. At least some people will call and be like, hey, I can do a free presentation on social media to your entire team. If that's something you're interested in. Hop on the call with Lindsay. And then once you get them on the call, that's like that free hook makes them want to call and actually take that first appointment.
- [11:52]
Lindsay Anderson
Right, right. You always have to have that next step. You always got to give people that next step. Okay, I love that.
- [11:58]
I had a client recently say to me, lindsay, I've never had leads come to me like this before. That's the difference between posting randomly and using a real strategy. At the BAM agency, we turn content into conversations and those conversations into clients. If you want a social media system that actually works, apply for a free social media strategy session. Call by heading over to Lindsay a.com apply.
- [12:30]
Let's talk specifically now about outsourcing to Africa. What makes that so special and different than every other place we could outsource to?
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Valerie Bowden
I'm so passionate about hiring from Africa. I think there's three things. First is a social impact. That's what led me to this in the first place, that creating jobs on the continent is so needed. I think the statistic is that Africa needs to create 18 million jobs every single year until 2035 to keep up with the demand of how many young people are entering the workforce. There's just literally not enough jobs available. I think another stat is like, 40% of young women cannot find a job in most African countries. But besides the social impact, there's just a really clear business roi. And that's because if you were to hire from, let's say, the Philippines, the Philippines is a relatively small country and it's oversaturated, so it's actually harder and harder to find good talent from there. And when you hire from the Philippines, you're not competing against Google. Microsoft and every other American company that's trying to find like a va. Whereas if you hire from an African country, the continent has a billion people, it's 54 unique countries. There's not tons of hiring happening from there. So it's really easy to find great talent and you're not competing against hundreds of other companies trying to hire them. And I think the final aspect about what makes hiring from Africa so special is just that there's been decades of making a priority for education. So now you get these college grads who speak perfect English, who are well educated, who are so excited to plug into an American company and work hard and make great money that they do so much of a better job. Like, just their work ethic and their ability to show up and get the job done correctly is unparalleled with, I think, anywhere else on the planet right now.
- [14:13]
Lindsay Anderson
Wow. You speak so passionately and, yeah, this is why I had you on this podcast. I love it in terms of tracking their work. So one of the most frustrating things is I'm going to hire this person for 10 hours a week. How do I know what they're doing? Upwork has a piece of software that will, like, take random screenshots. How do you recommend people manage that to get rid of that anxiety around what are they actually doing and how do I track this time without it taking my whole day?
- [14:38]
Valerie Bowden
Exactly, because you want some visibility. So we do have clients who. That is like an easy app to install where you can get screenshots of their laptops, what they're doing all day. But a lot of times you can also create a Google sheet or you can use an app like Harvest or Clockify, and they can enter their hours that they're working and then they can put the task beside it. So that way at the end of the week, you know exactly what they did and what took the most time. When I hired my first personal executive assistant, in the beginning, she would do a daily check in with me. At the end of the day, she would tell me what she did and. And then after two weeks, it wasn't necessary because I knew exactly what she was doing and I would see the evidence if she wasn't doing it quickly. But in the beginning, the more you understand and have visibility, the better.
- [15:19]
Lindsay Anderson
What is your. What's the typical. Like, how long do they stay? You invest all this time into a va. What has been your experience with that? I think do they go from job to job or what does that look like?
- [15:29]
Valerie Bowden
No, I think retention rate is great. The Reason why sometimes remote talent gets a bad reputation for being flaky or for moving jobs is because again, a lot of outsourcing companies don't pay well. So they'll. Even if you're paying a fair amount, the outsourcing company is taking all the profit. And again, that person might be getting paid 50 cents an hour. So that's why you have to be really careful about who you choose. As long as they're getting paid correctly and you integrate them as a real team member and you treat them fairly, they should stay around as long as possible. That's the goal.
- [15:59]
Lindsay Anderson
That is, the goal is to build this team. Okay, let's talk a little bit about AI in terms of VAs and how your BAs are using AI or how you think that's going to change your business or the landscape. What does the future look like with this AI situation?
- [16:14]
Valerie Bowden
I think AI is one of the best things that has happened for offshore team members because suddenly it's so much easier for someone who's offshore to do the work even better. So as an example, we have a 22 year old girl in Ethiopia who's doing work on our clients LinkedIn and social media pages and he's like a middle aged lawyer in Texas. The reason why she's able to use that is she can do tools like ChatGPT to mimic his voice and to know how to comment as him. And so I think it's a really big tool. So again, if you look at your business, I think you have to have some AI, you have to have some outsourcing and you have to have some internal US based team members. And then the combination of all three is going to be like what makes your company really take off. The more you can pair your assistants, whether that's a cold caller or virtual assistant with AI tools, the better that they're going to do. I know that I personally I'm not great with technology, but I also want to be on trend with AI. I'll have my assistant research like AI trends for my business and she'll try out the AI tools for me and then she'll tell me which ones are worthwhile and which ones aren't. And that's like another way you can really have your assistant keep you up to date with AI without you having to invest as much time into it.
- [17:23]
Lindsay Anderson
I love it. I love it. Can you speak just briefly about time zones? Tell me about the time zone situation.
- [17:28]
Valerie Bowden
Great question. So I would say whoever you hire, no matter what country they're in, they should work Your time zone for us, we have 9 to 5 EST is a default at the clients in California. We adjust for that. But whether you're hiring in the Philippines or India or anywhere, you want them to work your time zone because if not, it's really hard to work with them. Especially if it's like a social media post and you need to edit and you have to wait an entire day to clock in and get it back to you. It will just delay the process. So make them work your hours and.
- [17:53]
Lindsay Anderson
The VA's that you recommend and hire out are fine with working those hours. It sounds like.
- [17:58]
Valerie Bowden
Oh yeah, definitely. Everybody we hire is young, so most of them, they'd clock in around 4pm and clock out by midnight. So when I ask them what they think about that, most of them are like, I'd be up to midnight anyways. Now I get paid for it. We have a lot of especially women who are going to grad school during the day and they're able to pay for that because of their job and then at night they just clock in. I think if you are someone who wants to work for an outsourcing company, you know that comes with working a time zone that's not your own. However, you also do that because you have your entire day free and you're getting paid five times more what you could get paid locally. So you're okay with it.
- [18:33]
Lindsay Anderson
What is your message? For any entrepreneur or business owner that has not outsourced overseas, what's your big message take away from today?
- [18:41]
Valerie Bowden
Oh, I would say, well our slogan is always choose Africa. So I would say choose Africa when you are willing to and able to start talking about hiring offshore team members. But the best thing is just to try it, even if it's 10 hours a week. Dip your toes in. Because once you meet the team member, you will see that anyone in Africa around the world is so much more similar to you than you would realize and has the talent and expertise that you need. So it's only scary before you get going. But once you meet them and integrate them into your team, it's just like any other remote team member and they do a great job and you'll love them. And chances are you're going to increase their hours and then build an entire team around them because you'll see the magic of what outsourcing can do to build your business.
- [19:18]
Lindsay Anderson
I love, I do have actually one more question which is we have outsourced people writing comments on social media or helping with social media. What do you say to somebody who is like I have to do all of that myself. I have to do all the engagement and the commenting and all of that. And it's not authentic if someone else is doing that on my behalf. Do you have an opinion on that?
- [19:36]
Valerie Bowden
You can't do it all. You will not show up as well for your clients if you're trying to do everything. And again, as long as it comes back to the training, as long as you train them and you put in some parameters and you're giving them coaching and they'll probably do a better job than you because that's all they're doing and they can focus on it. Whereas you're trying to do 40 other things to run your business. And so no, you can't do it all. And you do need support.
- [19:59]
Lindsay Anderson
I love it. Valerie, before I let you go, I'm going to turn the time over to you. Let everybody know how to find you and anything else you want the audience to know.
- [20:06]
Valerie Bowden
If anybody is interested, you can always Visit our website, cradle.com it's spelled C R D L E like cradle without the A. I also live on LinkedIn so you can find me there. I post tons of tips on how to hire remote team members. So even if you're not ready for it, or maybe you already have your offshore team members, we post tons of tips that will make it better for you.
- [20:25]
Lindsay Anderson
Awesome. Valerie, thanks for coming on the show. There you have it folks, another awesome episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. And that is a wrap for today's episode. And I really appreciated Valerie coming on the show and giving us a refreshing take on what it takes to build a reliable remote team that actually supports your business growth. Here is what I want you to remember as you leave today's episode. You don't need to do it all yourself. You can build a lean, efficient claim generating machine with the right team behind you. Remember, this episode is brought to you by the Build and Monetize Agency. If you're ready to simplify your social media and turn your content into actual conversations that lead to clients, you and I need to talk. Make sure you head over to Lindsaya.com apply and apply now for a social media strategy session. If you enjoyed this episode of the Lindsay Anderson show, please leave us a review. It's how we can continue to bring really high quality content and guests here on the show. Make sure you follow and subscribe. And thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, cheers to you and your success.
- [21:39]
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review and share how you're leveling up your business. Want more? Connect with Lindsay Anderson and get the tools you need to crush your goals@lindsaya.com until next time, keep pushing, keep growing, and turn those business dreams into reality.
- [22:08]
Thank you for tuning in. If you got value from this episode, share it with a friend and hit subscribe. And if you're ready to stop posting and praying and actually generate revenue, let's talk. Book your free strategy session by going to Lindsaya.com apply.