May 1, 2025 • 38 mins
Hiring remote talent isn’t just a trend—it’s a smart strategy for businesses that want to scale fast, save money, and access global talent without the headaches of traditional hiring.
In this episode of From Crisis to Justice, Parag Amin sits down with Chris Brown, CTO and co-founder of Wow Remote Teams, a Latin America–focused staffing and recruiting firm that connects U.S. businesses with pre-vetted, top-tier remote talent.
With nearly 20 years in tech, leadership, and business automation, Chris shares how outsourcing the right way can save you 30%+ on hiring costs, reduce compliance risks, and help you grow with fewer overhead headaches.
Key takeaways include:
- W-2 vs. 1099 vs. outsourced staffing—what’s right for your business
- The biggest mistakes companies make when hiring remote workers
- Tools and tips for ensuring data security and productivity with a virtual team
- Why Latin America offers a unique advantage in time zones, culture fit, and communication
- How to build company culture—even if your team has never met in person
Whether you’re a startup founder, small business owner, or scaling enterprise, this episode will help you understand how to leverage nearshore talent to grow smarter, not harder.
Learn more about Chris Brown & Wow Remote Teams:
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Learn more about Parag Amin:
Business Law Firm:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to From Crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
(00:42):
Today I am joined by Chris Brown,not the Chris Brown.
You may have initially thoughtof the singer and dancer, but a different
Chris Brown, one who doesn't haveany allegations against him regarding
this,
actions relating to any ex-girlfriendsat all.
This Chris Brown is the CTO and partnerat WOW Remote
(01:06):
Teams staffing and recruiting firmthat connects U.S.
businesseswith top tier talent from Latin America.
He's got nearly two decades of experiencein technology, leadership,
software development, businessautomation and digital marketing.
He also specializes in scaling businessesthrough strategic
staffing solutionsand nearshore nearshore outsourcing,
(01:29):
where he helps companies save tremendousamounts and salary expenses
through his globaltalent acquisitions business.
And he helps a lot with remote staffing.
So appreciate you being on today, Chris,How are you doing?
Well, thanks.
Yeah, thanks for having me here.
It's great to it'sgreat to be on with you.
(01:50):
Yeah.
So you know, in terms of remote staffing,this is this is big
these days in terms of a lot of companiesare hiring remotely.
But then we're also hearinga lot of establishments, whether it's
private companies or the government,whether it's state government
or federal government, asking employeesto come back to the office.
(02:11):
So where do you think remote workwill go into the future?
Do you think that we're still goingto have remote work and what advantages
do you foresee remote workhaving versus in-person type work?
I don't seeit going away at any point in the future.
I mean, everybody
I know that has remote work or does remotework loves working remotely, you know,
(02:34):
I mean, there are plenty of peoplethat like to go to the office
and there's plenty of businessesthat prefer people in the office
because they see,you know, some benefit in some way.
But, you know, it's hard to have peoplewho were working full time remote or
even most time remote or part time remoteand have them go full return to office.
I've seen a lot of people
(02:55):
that are leaving positionsthat have full time work, turn to office
and are looking for just remote positionsor at least hybrid model positions.
The way we work isis a purely remote setup.
None of our people are working in office
except thethe two of us that are here in the U.S.
We, we work in our office together,but we don't otherwise
(03:16):
have any of our remote workerscome into an office.
And then all of the people that we staffin the client companies,
all of those are remote positions.
We're staffing 100% remote.
Yeah.
So all of our clients, you know,
they come in knowing that they're lookingfor remote workers, Right?
It's it's a major part of our propositionis that we're looking for people
who can work remotelythat have the ability to do so,
(03:39):
have the technology to do so,have the Internet connection to do so.
You know, they should be fully set upand prepared to go and not needed
office space or need additional equipment
or anything like thatin order to be able to do their job fully.
Yeah. Okay.
So when it comes to remote workers,I know that one big concern
is the safety of the data and the controlof the data and the security
(04:04):
and safety of whatever equipmentthat they're using to do the work.
Do you have any tips or thoughtsfor any business owners who are either
using remote employeesor considering hiring remote employees
in terms of how to help ensurethat the data is secure?
Okay. Well,there's a couple different options.
It really depends on what your data setupis and what your environment is.
(04:28):
So I see a lot of people usinglike us computers with a VPN or a U.S.
server, right?
So you're actually remote workingthrough a U.S.
piece or U.S. technology.
That way the data isn't actuallyleaving the home server.
You're just working on it through there.
There's a bunch of different ways
you can set that up so that the data isthat not actually like copy able
(04:48):
or downloadableor anything to the primary device.
It's mostly just about how you set upthose systems in order to do that.
And then, you know, it's a bitabout data security at that point, kind of
what are you what are you working inand what are you working with?
So legal firms like yourselfor accounting firms and things like
that will have higher levelsof security of data that's needed.
(05:09):
But from there, you know,
you're talking about kind of trustwith your workers.
So there's the initial level of trust,which is like background
checks and interviews
and those kind of thingswhere you make sure that this is somebody
you want to work with,this is somebody you can trust,
you know, make sure their background
check comes back clean,that they look like a person who would be,
you know,
a good person to work with your datain the first place,
(05:31):
whether that's a remote worker,an office worker. Right.
You need to be confident that the personthat you're bringing on board is somebody
that you want to have access to the datayou have anyways.
And then outside of that,you're just looking at, you know,
what are the systems, what are thethe contracts that you have in place
with these people?
So if you're not doing,you know, full on, you know, remote
(05:52):
servers or, you know, VPN or, you know,looking through that kind of thing,
maybe you're sending equipment yourselfor just doing the setup yourself
on their own equipment.
So there's a couple different optionswhere,
you know, you purchase the equipment,you set it up in-house, you provide
all of your security layers andeverything else onto the equipment itself,
and then you send that equipmentto the workers
(06:13):
and have them work on that devicejust for you. Right.
So it should not be a personal devicein any way.
It should be only their work device.
The other option is to set up either
take their personal deviceand run your own security software on it.
Right.So you remote into their their device.
You set it up with the security softwarethat you need with your integrations
so that you can have your own kindof data layer on that.
(06:34):
And then the other option from there
is to set up your own virtual machineinside their own devices.
So it'd be kind of a hybridbetween the two where you go in,
you set up a virtual machine,say, running windows,
and then you set up your full suite ofof software that you need to work on
and all of your access and everythingwithin that virtual machine.
And that way they'rethe machine they're working on is virtual.
(06:57):
They separate from the machinethat they're working on personally.
So there's a few different options for,you know, data security and levels of data
security there.
It really comes down towhat are you doing?
What is the level of securitythat you need?
And, you know, what are you looking forin in your outcomes with these people?
Because each of thosehas their own drawbacks as well.
When you're talking about
how difficult is itto work with these kind of technologies?
(07:20):
Right.
So if you're if you're working remotelyand you're remote, remotely
logging into a systemthat's a different server
and then working inside that serverlike as a, you know, a remote desktop
or a virtual machine somewherein the cloud or something like that,
then there's latency issues,there's drag issues.
You know, you have problems
where it just takes a little bit longerto do any of these kind of processes.
(07:41):
So it's a little bit about, you know, what
what does that look like for your businessand how does it work best for you?
Mm hmm.
Right.
And so,you know, even from the perspective of
building
culture with a remote team,do you have any thoughts on how one
buildsand promotes culture with a virtual team?
Yeah.
(08:02):
I mean, I think step one is to find peoplethat fit with your culture
in the first place, Right?
So in interviewing, in your first stepsand your first kind of looking like
you need to have a kind of clear idea
of what it is that you that you wantin the people that work with you.
You know, it's kind of like
it's kind of like finding friendsor relationships of any other sort.
You know, you're looking for peoplethat really fit with your personality
(08:23):
and with the personality of your businessas a whole.
If somebody doesn't fit well with you,it's going to be hard for you to kind of
intake them into your culture,right into your business culture, that is.
So you want to look for peoplethat are already kind of
of the same mindset and of the same drivethat you're looking for.
So for me, generally, we're looking for,you know, proactive go getters, right?
Problem solvers,especially for remote work.
(08:44):
You want somebody who can tacklethe problem themselves and come to you
when either they have a set of solutionsand they're not sure
which solution to go withor they're not finding that solution.
So they need some help with that,you know,
But that's just for me personally,if it works different for you, then,
you know, it's about identifyinghow does that work for you?
And then from there it's about,you know, what is what is your style
(09:04):
of of kind of leadership in that role,you know, in in
office is a bit different than remote,of course, because we're not in-person.
We're not seeing each other face to face.
We're not touching each other, which,you know, it's a different kind of thing.
But you still have the same sort of idea,right?
How are youhow often are you communicating?
What kind of communication styledo you have?
(09:25):
Is itis it all purely business communication?
Are you very like strict in that?
It's just do what you need to talk aboutis what you need to get done today,
or is it kind of blue fluid and andinteractive and like more friendly, Right.
So it's a bit about, you know,
how is your style of leadershipand what works best for you?
And then again,
coming back to finding peoplethat really fit with that kind of style.
(09:46):
And that can be a little bit hardwhen you're talking about like, you know,
15 or 20 minute interviews, you know,how do you really get a grasp on somebody?
But, you know,
coming up with good interview questions,coming up with a good idea of
what does it look liketo interact with somebody and,
you know, giving them enough timeto kind of calm their nerves
because interviews are always a bitof a nervous situation for both sides,
but more for the for the workerthan for the employer generally.
(10:09):
You know, to let them calm down a bit,let them get into it, get settled,
and then get an idea ofif their personality
fits with kind of the culture that you'relooking for and the ideas of how
you want to work and how you like to work.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one big thing I'ma big proponent of is testing,
because when it comes to interviewsin general,
(10:29):
there are some people who interview
very well because they're charismatic,they're articulate,
they're just very personable, and otherswho may not be that same way
personality wise,but who may realistically be a much better
skill fit in terms of the workthat actually needs to be done.
So I'm an avid proponentand we do this for for our hires
(10:50):
of having a test that actually simulatessome of the work they might be doing.
I'm curious to hearif you run similar kinds of tests
or if you do any kind of formal
personality tests like risk assessmentsor other things that you're requiring
these these potential workersto go through to decide
(11:11):
if they are a good culturefit or a good skill set?
Yeah, I mean, it's yes, we do.
Of course we're running prevetting and pre interviewing everybody.
We have our own internal metricsand our own internal tools
that we're runningto make sure that candidates fit
like what we would like to seeif we were hiring somebody, you know,
But I see a lot of clients come in
with their own tools, like a cultureindex seems to be a big one.
(11:34):
People comeand they have everybody that they
they going to interview.They take their culture
index survey before they comeand get into an interview.
And then outside of that, you know,that's really cultural fit
and that's really kind of personality fit.
And then you have task fitting, right?
So you're different kind of positionswill have different kinds of testing
for the job itself, especiallyonce you get up into more technical roles.
(11:56):
They'll have very, very structuredtesting for software developers and I.T.
positions and things like that.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
And so as you sit here today, Chris,
how many people would you estimatethat you through your company
or you either personallyor through your company have hired?
Oh, oh, a few hundred at least, Yeah.
(12:17):
Okay.
Over the course of the few years,probably close to a thousand.
Okay.
And so are there any best practicesthat you can give us in terms of
through that recruitingand hiring process?
Yeah, I mean, you know,number one is come in with a clear idea
of what it is that you're looking for.
You know, know what the tasking is.
Not only the job is that you needknow what you would like to see in a good
(12:39):
fit for your position like know againcoming back to the cultural thing
have a have a good idea ofwhat is a good cultural fit for you.
And that can be a little bit difficult,especially when you're smaller.
You know, if you're in your first,
you know, five or ten hires or whatever,or your first two or three,
it can be difficult to knowlike what is a good fit for this position.
And at that point, it's a lot about goingthrough a bunch of people, you know,
(13:02):
interviewing quite a bit, getting an ideaof what do people's personalities
look like,
What does it look like to work withsomeone versus be friendly with someone,
you know?What does it look like for someone to be
stressed, for someone to be on task,for someone to be off
task, for someone to have a good day,For someone to have a bad day, right?
We're all human.
We all have the same sort of thinghappening to us.
We all have random things outside
(13:23):
our world that happen to usand then we bring them in with us.
Like, how do you manage that?
How do you work around that?
You know, getting an idea ofwhat is it that that you you look for
when you're doing these thingsand kind of asking questions around that.
So good interview prep is really a thingthat takes a while to get good at.
But, you know, coming in witha good set of questions and now we have I
(13:46):
you know, all these tools,they're not they're not super creative,
but they're really good at informational.
So they're taking you know, you can goask them like, here's my position, here's
an outline of what I'm trying to do,what are good questions for this position?
And any of the current and I toolswill come up with a list of questions
that are pretty good and prettywell suited.
They might not be exactly what you'relooking for, but they'll get you close.
Right?
And from there you can kind of mold itto, you know,
(14:08):
what do you needand what are you looking for?
And then how does that fitwith what you're doing?
And when it comes to
call them yellow flags, I think
red flags are much easier to deal withwhen when you deal with an interview.
And I think the most
challenging components of an interviewor the yellow flags,
the ones where you're a little bituncertain,
you know, you have a little bitof uneasiness about something or an issue.
(14:31):
But on the balance,let's say the person seems positive,
you know, And in terms of those hires,at least in my experience,
those yellow flagsusually have ended up becoming
a much bigger issue.
I think that could just be a componentof higher pressure
and and very literal,very little tolerance for mistakes.
(14:53):
But in some environmentsthat are different from, for example,
my firm, you know, may may have a highertolerance for mistakes, but, you know, I'm
just curious to hear your thoughtson on yellow flags during an interview
and dealing with those meaning,is that enough to not hire or do you hire?
And then do youdo you track it or how do you handle it?
(15:14):
I'd say it really depends on the position,
because some positions,there's just not enough candidates
to really be like, well,I'm not going to hire because of this.
This one flagthat came up that I didn't like. Right.
And if you if you really need to hireand it's the best
candidate that you found, but there'sone thing that you don't like about it.
You know, they're not they're not
able to make your 80 a meeting,but otherwise they're a great candidate.
You know something?
(15:35):
I'm not sure,but there's just a quick thought.
You know, sometimes it'sworth it to just hire and make the trial
and see how it goesand try to work around it
and see how you know,how you massage that out.
But a lot of times,if you're if you have doubts
and if you have a positionwhere you're just like,
I don't I don't know if they fit.
I don't knowif that's a good way to go about this.
I don't know if that yellow flagis going to be a red flag.
(15:57):
It's usually better to wait and interviewmore people.
It's better to go through a different
round, go look for more and see,you know, are they are they the best fit?
Because you're looking for the best fit.And we're all humans.
We all have our yellow flags.
We all have some idiosyncrasies that justare a little bit odd about each of us.
So you're looking for the best fit,and sometimes that is the best fit,
depending on the position
and the role and the experience neededand a lot of other factors.
(16:21):
But many times,
if if something is giving you pauseor if something's making you think,
I don't know, thisjust doesn't feel right.
I don't think that this is the like
everything else is great, butthis one thing just really catches my eye.
Give it time, right?
Take it, take a break on it.
It's very rare that you don't have time.
You know, these are these in generallynot high pressured decisions.
And if they are, then eitheryou have a very unique position that
(16:45):
you may need to overlook the yellow flagsto fill because it's so unique
or somebody is putting pressure on itthat might not need
to be there. So
when it comes
to cultural norms and differences as well,
one thing and then that can createsome yellow flags.
(17:06):
One thing I've heard fromyou during our discussion
is that you hire primarilyin Latin American countries.
And so is that is that cultural?
Is there a cultural reason for that?
Is that is that a time zone region?
What what what logic is there for
that, just primarilyfocusing on Latin American countries
(17:27):
rather than the worldwide workforcefor for remote work?
Well, it is partially that focusingwell firstly night CEO
is from Colombia so she has a backgroundin hiring people in Latin America.
She's been an executive down therefor many years.
So and then now she lives in the U.S.
So it came with a knowledge base,a connection network.
(17:48):
Right?
It came with a wayto get into the market space.
There's also a bit of a differentiationfor us, right?
There's a lot of companies that are doingoutsourcing all over the world.
There's tons of people
hiring in the Philippines and Indiaand Eastern Europe and things like that.
I mean, there's other companies,of course, doing Latin America. But,
you know, it gave us a kind of a nicheto drill down into as far as culture.
(18:08):
You know, the culture fitis really good with the U.S.
I see quite a bit of clientsthat come over
that already have people in Philippinesor India or the eastern Eastern Europe,
and they see that,you know, it's it's hard to find people
that really give you pushbackin those kind of cultures for some reason.
I don't know what that is. I'mnot part of any of those cultures.
(18:29):
But, you know, they a lot of what I hearis that they see a lot of yes. Men.
You know,
people will tell them that they can dothe thing, that they're on it,
that they're blah, blah, blah,and then it doesn't get done
and it doesn't get donethe way that they want.
I think Latin Americahas more of a cultural fit with the U.S.,
which is more of a kind of capitalistickind of entrepreneurial kind of,
you know, go getter, go finish the job,go find the solution for yourself,
(18:50):
sort of, you know, be realisticabout what you can do
and how you can do it and get it donethe best you can do it.
The other big selling point,of course, is time zone in Latin America
is directly south of us, which means thatall the time zones line up fairly well.
So you're not trying to work with somebodyat two or three in the morning.
Eitherthey're working at two in the morning
or you're working at two in the morning,which usually means
you're working at two in the morning
(19:10):
because you're the one that's pressuringto get the task done correctly.
You know, everybody's
working during the day, same hours,same sort of time zone.
So it matches up really wellwith American and Canadian companies.
Mm hmm.
And have you found certain countriesor people from certain kinds of cities,
like smaller cities or bigger citiestend to be better than others?
(19:32):
I don't know about better.
We hire primarily out of Colombiaand Mexico.
Again, my
my CEO is from Bogota, Colombia,so she has a bit of an attachment to their
and then Mexico has a massive populationbecause they're just a very large country
and they're directly south of us.
So again, cultural fit, you know,
and and as well as just the sheervolume of people that are available.
Other than that,
(19:54):
the cool thing about the way we workand that we all work remotely
is that you can hire peopleout of little towns that wouldn't have
otherwise had an opportunityto do something like this.
So big cities are, you know, they're nice.
You get more kind ofan upbeat kind of crowd, but little towns.
You start to get people that otherwisedidn't have the opportunity before.
But now they all have laptops
and they all have great Internet,so there's no reason not to.
(20:16):
And then you end up with interestingsituations where, you know, like
you go and it's their birthday.
So of course you want to sendyour employees a gift on their birthday.
So you call us and you say, hey, you know,I know it's their birthday.
Can you help me get them some flowersor some chocolates or whatever?
And we look around the little town.
We have our virtual assistantscall down and find somebody that'll do it,
and you go to deliver it and you find outthat the lady that owns the flower
(20:39):
shop is the aunt of the lady of theof the person you have been working.
So she's going and delivering,
you know, flowers to her niecefor her birthday from you.
It's a lot of interesting thingslike that happen where you
you know,
you really feelthat you're having an effect
because you're you're working with peoplein little towns that are just you know,
they're they were off the map for uspreviously.
And over the last, you know, five,
(21:00):
ten years, we've really been ableto impact those communities,
right?
Yeah, that's beautiful.I really like that.
So these people from these smaller towns,especially, how do they find you?
Do you find that
both?
So, I mean, you know, we have awe have a recruiting team that's working
every day, all day, full timeteam of there's like six people
(21:21):
on the team currently.
So they're doing outreach to anybody
and everybody who looks like their skillset is qualified.
So you're going through
lots of different places.
I mean, LinkedIn kind of places.
There's a few of them in Latin America.
Each country kind of have its own place.
Then you can go through the databases
of the universities, of the, you know,the major universities in each area.
They all have online courses now.
(21:42):
So all these people in smaller towns
are able to take online coursesand get degrees
without actuallyhaving to go live in the big city.
And some people go live in the big cityand do the whole university experience.
So it's just kind of a a
there's a plethora of different avenuesto take to find, you know, to find people.
You're looking everywhere and everywhere.
As you get into more niche positions,you start looking at like groups
(22:03):
and Facebook groups and,you know, industry groups
and looking for registrationsand things like that.
And looking for offshoots like, you know,if you have a group of Java developers
in Guatemala or something,
you know, you can go through
and add those contacts to your listand start asking them
saying, Hey, by the way,we have this thing that we're doing.
If you're if you're interested in lookingfor more jobs, like send us your profile.
And then as we find somethingthat fits, we'll start bringing you in.
(22:27):
Yeah.
So it's just an ongoing motionof contacting as many people as you can
that look like they be qualifiedfor the things that you're generally doing
and then, you know, running,running or recruiting motion
that brings on all of those people, but
also is out looking for a much morebespoke kind of stuff. Like
there was one position we had thatwas looking for a scale of developers,
(22:49):
which is a fairly,you know, uncommon programing language.
And that was a lot of workbecause those people are hard to find.
So you're,you're out there doing that motion
of looking for groups of peoplewho might know scale.
You are in the kind of technology groupsthat you're talking about on Facebook
or on Twitter or X or whatever, or,you know, and various different places,
(23:10):
and then contacting all of them and tryingto get in contact with them, you know?
So it's just a
for us, it's a very large outreach motionor we're doing this all the time
and tryingto get as wide a network as we can
so that we can find the best peoplethat are it doesn't matter to us,
you know, where they are in Latin America,you know what town they're in.
And yeah, they can be a little bitdifficult sometimes, but yeah,
(23:31):
right.
And I think, you know,
that that's a big component when you sayit can be a little bit difficult just to
put some numbers around that.
What percentage of peoplewould you say where you reach out
cold, actually respond back,
Oh, oh, probably five ish percent.
Yeah, you're talking it depends.
(23:52):
I would say longer term, it'sprobably a little bit higher than that.
Just because it will hit them multipletimes and kind of keep pestering us.
It's a marketing motion.
At the end of the day,it's a little bit easier
to get more uptakebecause you're offering jobs in the US.
So you know, you get a little bit betterresponse rate, but there's lots of people
who aren't looking for a jobor are happy with what they're doing.
They're not going to respond to you,you know.
But other than that, there's alwaysthe kind of warm and down side of that,
(24:15):
which is word posting jobs or posting jobsall over the local posting boards,
the LinkedIn boards,the major posting boards.
You know,there's lots of different posting places
and then you get a lot of warm inboundfrom that kind of thing.
And that's that's a total differenceand it kind of uptake place.
But, you know,
those people are very interestedin finding a job
and they're very interested in the jobthat's currently posted.
So there's two sides of that coinhappening at all times.
(24:37):
So it's a little bit
it's a little bit different,but the cold out now
and yet you're not it's not a hugeit's not hugely successful on its site.
It is it is challenging.
And, you know, it's interestingbecause the reason I asked is
I think sometimes people start outand they they fully expect
that it should be like a 50% minimumresponse rate.
And the reality of it is is is far lower.
(25:00):
And so,you know, when it comes to the outreach
and the outbound component of things,are there certain kind of personalities
that you're looking at or looking forwhen you're reaching out?
Or is this mostly about justtheir specific credentials?
Yeah, I think on outreach,you're primarily looking for skills
(25:20):
and credentials.
You're looking for somebody
who looks like they could fit the profileof somebody who could do the position.
And then you get into interviewing.
That's when you find out
what their personality is like,what their cultural cities like.
And then, you know, oncekind of you're reaching out,
you're hopefully looking for somebodywho has experience doing remote work
so that you don't really have to spin theminto that and like, train them up on on
(25:41):
how remote work works.
But for the most part, you know, we'relooking for people who would otherwise
match the qualifications of here'sthe job posting, here's what's
what's needed, here's the remote work,you know, here's the time zone.
But that's generally going to fit inwith your very off on coasts or something.
Yeah.
And then you get into pre vetting,you know,
you get into our initial roundsof interviews,
(26:01):
which happenedbefore a client would ever see them.
And that sort of tells us, you know,whether they they fit that kind of model.
Right.
Are they are they go getters, are they,you know, are they hungry essentially?
Do they look like they're going to go
solve a problem by themselvesand really take care of this problem?
Right.
And so, you know, part of that,speaking of problems and solving problems,
(26:22):
I think a big part ofany kind of hiring is compliance.
And so how do you all
keep track of compliancein these various countries?
And are there third party companiesyou're using to help with compliance
and payroll?
Are you dealing with it directly?
So for the most part,we're dealing with it directly.
We have the employer of record, anagent of record in most of the countries.
(26:44):
And there's a couplewhere we use a third party.
We have contractsfor the people themselves in done
by lawyers in the homecountry with us using our entity
in the US or our Colombian entity,but primarily our US entity.
And then all of that contracting is donedirectly through us in in their home
language, which is Spanish,except for Brazil, where it's Portuguese
(27:07):
and then,you know, everything in the US side.
So everything on the clientside is done with us as a U.S.
company.
So there's nothing for the clientis seeing an international touch point.
Everything is done as a US company,invoicing them as a US company, you know,
the whole the whole thing.
They're we handle all the h.r.
We handle all the payments.
We handle payments down to them.
(27:28):
Anything that needs to be donefor benefits and taxes based on the home
countries needs are taken care ofwith that contracting that we have set up.
And i think a big part in the big concernfor people is the productivity
of their remote workers.
Once you've hiredthem, compliance is fine.
Are there any tools or tacticsthat you recommend
(27:49):
to help ensure the productivityof remote workers without necessarily
having them feelas if you're micromanaging them?
Yeah.
I mean, number one, of course,is always to know what you expect, right?
Have good you know,everybody talks about KPIs, right,
But have a good idea of what it is
that needs to be accomplishedon a regular basis
and make sure that they're meetingthose tasks.
(28:09):
You know, you should
you should if you're hiring somebody,you should have a very clear idea
of what it is you're hiring them to doand what you expect of them over the
longer term, whether that be, you know,the next six months, next five years.
And what does that look like foryou for them to be accomplishing the tasks
that they're getting done?
Then there's also software we use hubstaffinternally that tracks all their hours
that, you know, takes screenshotsof your screen to make sure you're
(28:32):
on task and doing all those things.
Nobody's really looking at that.
But every now
and now and then you have an issue
and somebody comes back to you and says,Hey, I think that they're, you know,
falsifying these timesheetsor something like that.
And then you can go look and say,okay, well, were they actually working?
Was really just clickingrandomly on a screen or something.
So there's tools to measure, you know,that things are actually getting done.
(28:54):
But I come back to the primarything is making sure that like a you know,
what the work is that needs to be done.
And B,how do you measure that it's being done.
How are you making
sure that it's being done effectivelyand moving your business forward?
Right, Because every position you hire isjust it's an investment.
It's an investment in your business.
And the idea is for thisto be moving a process forward
in a way that you shouldn't be havingto micromanage if you're micromanaging it.
(29:17):
And that's that's astill a problem for you right now.
So yeah, I think it's it's majorly onmaking sure you know what the tasking is
and making sure it's getting done and getting done the way you need it to get done.
Right?
Absolutely.
And so, you know,
where do you foresee the futureof remote work in the next 5 to 10 years?
Do you think it's going to be moreor less the same
(29:37):
that as it is now, Or do you think it'sgoing to be different?
And if you think it'sgoing to be different,
how do you thinkit's going to be different?
It's a good question. I'm
I lean towards saying it'sbasically going to be the same.
I'm not sure how much differentit could be.
You know, again, we have people
everybody we have on board is workingfull time remotely.
So there's no there's not a lot of changegoing on there.
(30:00):
There's a lot of stuff.
You know, there's a lot of talk about
AI and all these different piecesthat are coming up
and how that might change how people workand how people do things.
And and honestly, it's changed how we wereI mean, we we use it
internally all the time.
And, you know, it's it changeshow you get things
done in the way,you know, your processes essentially.
But remote work itselfhasn't actually changed.
(30:20):
You need somebody to be available
and be online and be thoughtfuland be proactive and be a problem solver
and be there tackling the issuesthat you have in order to get things done.
And I don't necessarily know thatthat changes in any way, because I think
that's the same kind of thing
we've been doing for,you know, a couple of hundred years now.
You know, as as,you know, capital is countries like the
(30:42):
the idea is to be productiveand get work done.
And I don't know thatthat's going to change in any major way.
Maybe the way we connect will maybe bettertools will come along.
But the tools we have arepretty solid at the moment.
You know, there's there's athere's always another communication tool.
There's always another way to connect.
But how much can you really add?
(31:03):
You know, people don't want to beon a video call all day long.
Most people don't really like
being on video calls much at all,other than when they need to be.
So, you know, you have that.
You have, you know,different communication platforms
and text communication.
We use Microsoft,
so we're on teams, but, you know, there'sSlack and Google and everything else.
They're always coming up with new waysto to maintain interactivity
(31:26):
and maintain connectivity.
But I'm
not sure that I have a clear ideaon how it could be vastly better
or vastly different because it's alreadyvery effective as long as you're doing it
right and getting the right peopleon board to do what you need done.
Right? Absolutely.
And speaking of effectivenessand getting the right people on board,
you know, for somebodywho's considering hiring remote staff
(31:48):
and making the decision of whether they gowith an agency such as yours
or try to go their own route,
what advice would you give them and why?
And, you know, would that invites changedepending on how large
they've gotten?
Well, my advice would be go try.
(32:08):
Go see what you can find. Go on, go, go.
Put the motion and go put the effort inand try to find good candidates
for your positionsand try to interview some people
and try to find somebodythat really fits for you.
You know, I'm I'm my team is here.
We're we're always recruiting.We're always working.
I know I can find good talent.
I know I can find great fits for people.We do it every single day.
But I think the best way to find outthat you need that kind of service
(32:31):
is to go try and do itand see if it's difficult for you.
Right?
If you're the kind of personthat really enjoys
going through a couple hundred resumesin order to schedule out
a couple dozen interviews,in order to find out
that most of them were in a fitin the first place.
And please enjoy yourself and have fun.
You know, if you don't want to do that,you don't want to go through that
(32:52):
problem set.
And we're here to we're hereto whittle that down to, you know, two
or three profiles for you and really showyou what's available out there.
But the best wayto find out what your needs are
and what you're really looking foris to go try to do it yourself.
As always.
You know, I kind of do thatwith every process that we implement
is that I think I think I should knowhow everything works right now.
(33:13):
That's not true.I don't know how everything works.
I'm not created everything.
But, you know,the first attempt is usually by me.
So the first attempt is by somebody else.
It's it's kind of hard to knowwhether it's successful or not, you know?
So, yeah, absolutely.
And so when it comes to workingwith your company, Chris,
where can they find you and how doeshow does pricing for that work.
(33:36):
Yeah well remote teams dot comyou can also find me on LinkedIn.
Chris Brown while remote teamsyou know we're here we're available
pricing is really pretty straightforward.
It really depends on the rolethat you need
and the position that you're looking for.
Our pricing model is all includedin the hourly rate that we give people.
So there's no upfront cost,
there's no retainer costs, there'sno upfront fees or anything like that.
(33:59):
You know, you just give me a call.
I take all your information, I get an ideaof what it is you're looking for,
and then we go out and we find someprofiles that match what we discussed,
and then we send those to you,and then those will have a,
you know, an hourly rate attached to them.
And and then you get to see, you know,what is the profile,
what is the experience level,what is the skill set
and what is the price range for thatskill set?
(34:20):
Generally, we're saving 30plus over US salary costs.
I mean, remember, you're not payingyou know, you're not paying
payroll taxes, you're not
paying Social Security taxes Like there'syou're not paying us benefits.
So there's a massive amount of savingsall across the entire board,
especially when you look at total compthat the savings can be really large.
(34:42):
So yeah, it's a fairly straightforwardprocess for us and we try to make it
as clear, transparent and simpleas possible for our clients, you know,
our contracts are month to month,
but those are contracts with usthat are month to month.
If you have any issues with talent,
you know, we're happy to help you offboard that talent basically as quickly
as you need.
And find more people for that position,which means that I'm not holding
(35:04):
you down to six monthor one year contracts.
I'm not holding you into the long term.
If my value propositionisn't actually valuable to you,
you're not going to stay aroundas a client.
I don't want you to write.
So I'm looking for peoplewho really get a win win out of this.
They get they get great people,they get get pricing and the people
that work for them are havinga, you know, a great job because of it.
And they get to work with people in the USand they get to work in English
(35:27):
and there's just there's benefitson both sides, right?
Absolutely.
And so just to put that into perspectivein terms of realistically
what somebody might be looking at,can you give us a range in terms of
the hourly rate that somebody
might be paying your companyin the type of position?
Yeah, sure.
So I mean, general marketing people,you know, if you're looking for digital
(35:48):
ad specialist, you'relooking at the 15 to $20 an hour range.
If you're looking for virtual assistants,generally about $10 an hour
for somebody that's going to be doing backend data entry kind of stuff,
they'll all be English speaking.
Of course,
if you needsomebody who's going to be on the phone
speaking English to English speakingclients who are looking 15 to $20 an hour
there, as you get into higher endpositions,
(36:10):
you get into developers like webdevelopers, you know, 25, $30 an hour.
And then up from there, you know,
as you get into specialty developers,they get higher and higher.
But again, it's always it's alwaysgoing to be competitive versus US costs.
Like very competitive,
right?
Yes, absolutely.
And the challengeswith the United States are, you know,
(36:31):
the cost continue increasingwhen it comes to employee benefits, etc.,
especially in places like Californiawhere my law firm is based.
Yeah, California.
In New York,I get a lot of calls from people.
People just can't handle the amountof cost that it's involved in U.S.
workers anymore, right? Yes.
So, Chris, thank you so much
for joining me todayand enlightening us with
(36:55):
some really good insightsin terms of remote staffing,
because I have no doubt thatthis will continue to be a growing part
of the workforce into the futurefor the United States due to the increased
scrutiny and challenges when it comesto labor laws and expenses and taxes here.
So again, thank you so much for sharing
(37:16):
some of your wisdom and knowledgethat you've learned over the years.
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.Thank you for the time here.
It was great talking to you and you know,tell your listeners, please go,
go look at Latin America for for talent.
It doesn't have to be through mein any way.
Like, please go searchbecause there's amazing people out there
and there's amazing talentand it's really going to broaden
your your availabilityand your horizons for your business.
(37:39):
Yeah, I love that. And I agree with that.
And to all the listeners,thank you all for joining.
Hope you got a lot out of this.
I knowI did during this conversation with Chris.
And if you haven't alreadymake sure you like and subscribe
so that you hearwhen the latest podcast is dropping
so we can continue helping youand your business thrive into the future.
Thank you and I'll see you next time.
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to From Crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
(00:42):
Today I am joined by Chris Brown,not the Chris Brown.
You may have initially thoughtof the singer and dancer, but a different
Chris Brown, one who doesn't haveany allegations against him regarding
this,
actions relating to any ex-girlfriendsat all.
This Chris Brown is the CTO and partnerat WOW Remote
(01:06):
Teams staffing and recruiting firmthat connects U.S.
businesseswith top tier talent from Latin America.
He's got nearly two decades of experiencein technology, leadership,
software development, businessautomation and digital marketing.
He also specializes in scaling businessesthrough strategic
staffing solutionsand nearshore nearshore outsourcing,
(01:29):
where he helps companies save tremendousamounts and salary expenses
through his globaltalent acquisitions business.
And he helps a lot with remote staffing.
So appreciate you being on today, Chris,How are you doing?
Well, thanks.
Yeah, thanks for having me here.
It's great to it'sgreat to be on with you.
(01:50):
Yeah.
So you know, in terms of remote staffing,this is this is big
these days in terms of a lot of companiesare hiring remotely.
But then we're also hearinga lot of establishments, whether it's
private companies or the government,whether it's state government
or federal government, asking employeesto come back to the office.
(02:11):
So where do you think remote workwill go into the future?
Do you think that we're still goingto have remote work and what advantages
do you foresee remote workhaving versus in-person type work?
I don't seeit going away at any point in the future.
I mean, everybody
I know that has remote work or does remotework loves working remotely, you know,
(02:34):
I mean, there are plenty of peoplethat like to go to the office
and there's plenty of businessesthat prefer people in the office
because they see,you know, some benefit in some way.
But, you know, it's hard to have peoplewho were working full time remote or
even most time remote or part time remoteand have them go full return to office.
I've seen a lot of people
(02:55):
that are leaving positionsthat have full time work, turn to office
and are looking for just remote positionsor at least hybrid model positions.
The way we work isis a purely remote setup.
None of our people are working in office
except thethe two of us that are here in the U.S.
We, we work in our office together,but we don't otherwise
(03:16):
have any of our remote workerscome into an office.
And then all of the people that we staffin the client companies,
all of those are remote positions.
We're staffing 100% remote.
Yeah.
So all of our clients, you know,
they come in knowing that they're lookingfor remote workers, Right?
It's it's a major part of our propositionis that we're looking for people
who can work remotelythat have the ability to do so,
(03:39):
have the technology to do so,have the Internet connection to do so.
You know, they should be fully set upand prepared to go and not needed
office space or need additional equipment
or anything like thatin order to be able to do their job fully.
Yeah. Okay.
So when it comes to remote workers,I know that one big concern
is the safety of the data and the controlof the data and the security
(04:04):
and safety of whatever equipmentthat they're using to do the work.
Do you have any tips or thoughtsfor any business owners who are either
using remote employeesor considering hiring remote employees
in terms of how to help ensurethat the data is secure?
Okay. Well,there's a couple different options.
It really depends on what your data setupis and what your environment is.
(04:28):
So I see a lot of people usinglike us computers with a VPN or a U.S.
server, right?
So you're actually remote workingthrough a U.S.
piece or U.S. technology.
That way the data isn't actuallyleaving the home server.
You're just working on it through there.
There's a bunch of different ways
you can set that up so that the data isthat not actually like copy able
(04:48):
or downloadableor anything to the primary device.
It's mostly just about how you set upthose systems in order to do that.
And then, you know, it's a bitabout data security at that point, kind of
what are you what are you working inand what are you working with?
So legal firms like yourselfor accounting firms and things like
that will have higher levelsof security of data that's needed.
(05:09):
But from there, you know,
you're talking about kind of trustwith your workers.
So there's the initial level of trust,which is like background
checks and interviews
and those kind of thingswhere you make sure that this is somebody
you want to work with,this is somebody you can trust,
you know, make sure their background
check comes back clean,that they look like a person who would be,
you know,
a good person to work with your datain the first place,
(05:31):
whether that's a remote worker,an office worker. Right.
You need to be confident that the personthat you're bringing on board is somebody
that you want to have access to the datayou have anyways.
And then outside of that,you're just looking at, you know,
what are the systems, what are thethe contracts that you have in place
with these people?
So if you're not doing,you know, full on, you know, remote
(05:52):
servers or, you know, VPN or, you know,looking through that kind of thing,
maybe you're sending equipment yourselfor just doing the setup yourself
on their own equipment.
So there's a couple different optionswhere,
you know, you purchase the equipment,you set it up in-house, you provide
all of your security layers andeverything else onto the equipment itself,
and then you send that equipmentto the workers
(06:13):
and have them work on that devicejust for you. Right.
So it should not be a personal devicein any way.
It should be only their work device.
The other option is to set up either
take their personal deviceand run your own security software on it.
Right.So you remote into their their device.
You set it up with the security softwarethat you need with your integrations
so that you can have your own kindof data layer on that.
(06:34):
And then the other option from there
is to set up your own virtual machineinside their own devices.
So it'd be kind of a hybridbetween the two where you go in,
you set up a virtual machine,say, running windows,
and then you set up your full suite ofof software that you need to work on
and all of your access and everythingwithin that virtual machine.
And that way they'rethe machine they're working on is virtual.
(06:57):
They separate from the machinethat they're working on personally.
So there's a few different options for,you know, data security and levels of data
security there.
It really comes down towhat are you doing?
What is the level of securitythat you need?
And, you know, what are you looking forin in your outcomes with these people?
Because each of thosehas their own drawbacks as well.
When you're talking about
how difficult is itto work with these kind of technologies?
(07:20):
Right.
So if you're if you're working remotelyand you're remote, remotely
logging into a systemthat's a different server
and then working inside that serverlike as a, you know, a remote desktop
or a virtual machine somewherein the cloud or something like that,
then there's latency issues,there's drag issues.
You know, you have problems
where it just takes a little bit longerto do any of these kind of processes.
(07:41):
So it's a little bit about, you know, what
what does that look like for your businessand how does it work best for you?
Mm hmm.
Right.
And so,you know, even from the perspective of
building
culture with a remote team,do you have any thoughts on how one
buildsand promotes culture with a virtual team?
Yeah.
(08:02):
I mean, I think step one is to find peoplethat fit with your culture
in the first place, Right?
So in interviewing, in your first stepsand your first kind of looking like
you need to have a kind of clear idea
of what it is that you that you wantin the people that work with you.
You know, it's kind of like
it's kind of like finding friendsor relationships of any other sort.
You know, you're looking for peoplethat really fit with your personality
(08:23):
and with the personality of your businessas a whole.
If somebody doesn't fit well with you,it's going to be hard for you to kind of
intake them into your culture,right into your business culture, that is.
So you want to look for peoplethat are already kind of
of the same mindset and of the same drivethat you're looking for.
So for me, generally, we're looking for,you know, proactive go getters, right?
Problem solvers,especially for remote work.
(08:44):
You want somebody who can tacklethe problem themselves and come to you
when either they have a set of solutionsand they're not sure
which solution to go withor they're not finding that solution.
So they need some help with that,you know,
But that's just for me personally,if it works different for you, then,
you know, it's about identifyinghow does that work for you?
And then from there it's about,you know, what is what is your style
(09:04):
of of kind of leadership in that role,you know, in in
office is a bit different than remote,of course, because we're not in-person.
We're not seeing each other face to face.
We're not touching each other, which,you know, it's a different kind of thing.
But you still have the same sort of idea,right?
How are youhow often are you communicating?
What kind of communication styledo you have?
(09:25):
Is itis it all purely business communication?
Are you very like strict in that?
It's just do what you need to talk aboutis what you need to get done today,
or is it kind of blue fluid and andinteractive and like more friendly, Right.
So it's a bit about, you know,
how is your style of leadershipand what works best for you?
And then again,
coming back to finding peoplethat really fit with that kind of style.
(09:46):
And that can be a little bit hardwhen you're talking about like, you know,
15 or 20 minute interviews, you know,how do you really get a grasp on somebody?
But, you know,
coming up with good interview questions,coming up with a good idea of
what does it look liketo interact with somebody and,
you know, giving them enough timeto kind of calm their nerves
because interviews are always a bitof a nervous situation for both sides,
but more for the for the workerthan for the employer generally.
(10:09):
You know, to let them calm down a bit,let them get into it, get settled,
and then get an idea ofif their personality
fits with kind of the culture that you'relooking for and the ideas of how
you want to work and how you like to work.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one big thing I'ma big proponent of is testing,
because when it comes to interviewsin general,
(10:29):
there are some people who interview
very well because they're charismatic,they're articulate,
they're just very personable, and otherswho may not be that same way
personality wise,but who may realistically be a much better
skill fit in terms of the workthat actually needs to be done.
So I'm an avid proponentand we do this for for our hires
(10:50):
of having a test that actually simulatessome of the work they might be doing.
I'm curious to hearif you run similar kinds of tests
or if you do any kind of formal
personality tests like risk assessmentsor other things that you're requiring
these these potential workersto go through to decide
(11:11):
if they are a good culturefit or a good skill set?
Yeah, I mean, it's yes, we do.
Of course we're running prevetting and pre interviewing everybody.
We have our own internal metricsand our own internal tools
that we're runningto make sure that candidates fit
like what we would like to seeif we were hiring somebody, you know,
But I see a lot of clients come in
with their own tools, like a cultureindex seems to be a big one.
(11:34):
People comeand they have everybody that they
they going to interview.They take their culture
index survey before they comeand get into an interview.
And then outside of that, you know,that's really cultural fit
and that's really kind of personality fit.
And then you have task fitting, right?
So you're different kind of positionswill have different kinds of testing
for the job itself, especiallyonce you get up into more technical roles.
(11:56):
They'll have very, very structuredtesting for software developers and I.T.
positions and things like that.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
And so as you sit here today, Chris,
how many people would you estimatethat you through your company
or you either personallyor through your company have hired?
Oh, oh, a few hundred at least, Yeah.
(12:17):
Okay.
Over the course of the few years,probably close to a thousand.
Okay.
And so are there any best practicesthat you can give us in terms of
through that recruitingand hiring process?
Yeah, I mean, you know,number one is come in with a clear idea
of what it is that you're looking for.
You know, know what the tasking is.
Not only the job is that you needknow what you would like to see in a good
(12:39):
fit for your position like know againcoming back to the cultural thing
have a have a good idea ofwhat is a good cultural fit for you.
And that can be a little bit difficult,especially when you're smaller.
You know, if you're in your first,
you know, five or ten hires or whatever,or your first two or three,
it can be difficult to knowlike what is a good fit for this position.
And at that point, it's a lot about goingthrough a bunch of people, you know,
(13:02):
interviewing quite a bit, getting an ideaof what do people's personalities
look like,
What does it look like to work withsomeone versus be friendly with someone,
you know?What does it look like for someone to be
stressed, for someone to be on task,for someone to be off
task, for someone to have a good day,For someone to have a bad day, right?
We're all human.
We all have the same sort of thinghappening to us.
We all have random things outside
(13:23):
our world that happen to usand then we bring them in with us.
Like, how do you manage that?
How do you work around that?
You know, getting an idea ofwhat is it that that you you look for
when you're doing these thingsand kind of asking questions around that.
So good interview prep is really a thingthat takes a while to get good at.
But, you know, coming in witha good set of questions and now we have I
(13:46):
you know, all these tools,they're not they're not super creative,
but they're really good at informational.
So they're taking you know, you can goask them like, here's my position, here's
an outline of what I'm trying to do,what are good questions for this position?
And any of the current and I toolswill come up with a list of questions
that are pretty good and prettywell suited.
They might not be exactly what you'relooking for, but they'll get you close.
Right?
And from there you can kind of mold itto, you know,
(14:08):
what do you needand what are you looking for?
And then how does that fitwith what you're doing?
And when it comes to
call them yellow flags, I think
red flags are much easier to deal withwhen when you deal with an interview.
And I think the most
challenging components of an interviewor the yellow flags,
the ones where you're a little bituncertain,
you know, you have a little bitof uneasiness about something or an issue.
(14:31):
But on the balance,let's say the person seems positive,
you know, And in terms of those hires,at least in my experience,
those yellow flagsusually have ended up becoming
a much bigger issue.
I think that could just be a componentof higher pressure
and and very literal,very little tolerance for mistakes.
(14:53):
But in some environmentsthat are different from, for example,
my firm, you know, may may have a highertolerance for mistakes, but, you know, I'm
just curious to hear your thoughtson on yellow flags during an interview
and dealing with those meaning,is that enough to not hire or do you hire?
And then do youdo you track it or how do you handle it?
(15:14):
I'd say it really depends on the position,
because some positions,there's just not enough candidates
to really be like, well,I'm not going to hire because of this.
This one flagthat came up that I didn't like. Right.
And if you if you really need to hireand it's the best
candidate that you found, but there'sone thing that you don't like about it.
You know, they're not they're not
able to make your 80 a meeting,but otherwise they're a great candidate.
You know something?
(15:35):
I'm not sure,but there's just a quick thought.
You know, sometimes it'sworth it to just hire and make the trial
and see how it goesand try to work around it
and see how you know,how you massage that out.
But a lot of times,if you're if you have doubts
and if you have a positionwhere you're just like,
I don't I don't know if they fit.
I don't knowif that's a good way to go about this.
I don't know if that yellow flagis going to be a red flag.
(15:57):
It's usually better to wait and interviewmore people.
It's better to go through a different
round, go look for more and see,you know, are they are they the best fit?
Because you're looking for the best fit.And we're all humans.
We all have our yellow flags.
We all have some idiosyncrasies that justare a little bit odd about each of us.
So you're looking for the best fit,and sometimes that is the best fit,
depending on the position
and the role and the experience neededand a lot of other factors.
(16:21):
But many times,
if if something is giving you pauseor if something's making you think,
I don't know, thisjust doesn't feel right.
I don't think that this is the like
everything else is great, butthis one thing just really catches my eye.
Give it time, right?
Take it, take a break on it.
It's very rare that you don't have time.
You know, these are these in generallynot high pressured decisions.
And if they are, then eitheryou have a very unique position that
(16:45):
you may need to overlook the yellow flagsto fill because it's so unique
or somebody is putting pressure on itthat might not need
to be there. So
when it comes
to cultural norms and differences as well,
one thing and then that can createsome yellow flags.
(17:06):
One thing I've heard fromyou during our discussion
is that you hire primarilyin Latin American countries.
And so is that is that cultural?
Is there a cultural reason for that?
Is that is that a time zone region?
What what what logic is there for
that, just primarilyfocusing on Latin American countries
(17:27):
rather than the worldwide workforcefor for remote work?
Well, it is partially that focusingwell firstly night CEO
is from Colombia so she has a backgroundin hiring people in Latin America.
She's been an executive down therefor many years.
So and then now she lives in the U.S.
So it came with a knowledge base,a connection network.
(17:48):
Right?
It came with a wayto get into the market space.
There's also a bit of a differentiationfor us, right?
There's a lot of companies that are doingoutsourcing all over the world.
There's tons of people
hiring in the Philippines and Indiaand Eastern Europe and things like that.
I mean, there's other companies,of course, doing Latin America. But,
you know, it gave us a kind of a nicheto drill down into as far as culture.
(18:08):
You know, the culture fitis really good with the U.S.
I see quite a bit of clientsthat come over
that already have people in Philippinesor India or the eastern Eastern Europe,
and they see that,you know, it's it's hard to find people
that really give you pushbackin those kind of cultures for some reason.
I don't know what that is. I'mnot part of any of those cultures.
(18:29):
But, you know, they a lot of what I hearis that they see a lot of yes. Men.
You know,
people will tell them that they can dothe thing, that they're on it,
that they're blah, blah, blah,and then it doesn't get done
and it doesn't get donethe way that they want.
I think Latin Americahas more of a cultural fit with the U.S.,
which is more of a kind of capitalistickind of entrepreneurial kind of,
you know, go getter, go finish the job,go find the solution for yourself,
(18:50):
sort of, you know, be realisticabout what you can do
and how you can do it and get it donethe best you can do it.
The other big selling point,of course, is time zone in Latin America
is directly south of us, which means thatall the time zones line up fairly well.
So you're not trying to work with somebodyat two or three in the morning.
Eitherthey're working at two in the morning
or you're working at two in the morning,which usually means
you're working at two in the morning
(19:10):
because you're the one that's pressuringto get the task done correctly.
You know, everybody's
working during the day, same hours,same sort of time zone.
So it matches up really wellwith American and Canadian companies.
Mm hmm.
And have you found certain countriesor people from certain kinds of cities,
like smaller cities or bigger citiestend to be better than others?
(19:32):
I don't know about better.
We hire primarily out of Colombiaand Mexico.
Again, my
my CEO is from Bogota, Colombia,so she has a bit of an attachment to their
and then Mexico has a massive populationbecause they're just a very large country
and they're directly south of us.
So again, cultural fit, you know,
and and as well as just the sheervolume of people that are available.
Other than that,
(19:54):
the cool thing about the way we workand that we all work remotely
is that you can hire peopleout of little towns that wouldn't have
otherwise had an opportunityto do something like this.
So big cities are, you know, they're nice.
You get more kind ofan upbeat kind of crowd, but little towns.
You start to get people that otherwisedidn't have the opportunity before.
But now they all have laptops
and they all have great Internet,so there's no reason not to.
(20:16):
And then you end up with interestingsituations where, you know, like
you go and it's their birthday.
So of course you want to sendyour employees a gift on their birthday.
So you call us and you say, hey, you know,I know it's their birthday.
Can you help me get them some flowersor some chocolates or whatever?
And we look around the little town.
We have our virtual assistantscall down and find somebody that'll do it,
and you go to deliver it and you find outthat the lady that owns the flower
(20:39):
shop is the aunt of the lady of theof the person you have been working.
So she's going and delivering,
you know, flowers to her niecefor her birthday from you.
It's a lot of interesting thingslike that happen where you
you know,
you really feelthat you're having an effect
because you're you're working with peoplein little towns that are just you know,
they're they were off the map for uspreviously.
And over the last, you know, five,
(21:00):
ten years, we've really been ableto impact those communities,
right?
Yeah, that's beautiful.I really like that.
So these people from these smaller towns,especially, how do they find you?
Do you find that
both?
So, I mean, you know, we have awe have a recruiting team that's working
every day, all day, full timeteam of there's like six people
(21:21):
on the team currently.
So they're doing outreach to anybody
and everybody who looks like their skillset is qualified.
So you're going through
lots of different places.
I mean, LinkedIn kind of places.
There's a few of them in Latin America.
Each country kind of have its own place.
Then you can go through the databases
of the universities, of the, you know,the major universities in each area.
They all have online courses now.
(21:42):
So all these people in smaller towns
are able to take online coursesand get degrees
without actuallyhaving to go live in the big city.
And some people go live in the big cityand do the whole university experience.
So it's just kind of a a
there's a plethora of different avenuesto take to find, you know, to find people.
You're looking everywhere and everywhere.
As you get into more niche positions,you start looking at like groups
(22:03):
and Facebook groups and,you know, industry groups
and looking for registrationsand things like that.
And looking for offshoots like, you know,if you have a group of Java developers
in Guatemala or something,
you know, you can go through
and add those contacts to your listand start asking them
saying, Hey, by the way,we have this thing that we're doing.
If you're if you're interested in lookingfor more jobs, like send us your profile.
And then as we find somethingthat fits, we'll start bringing you in.
(22:27):
Yeah.
So it's just an ongoing motionof contacting as many people as you can
that look like they be qualifiedfor the things that you're generally doing
and then, you know, running,running or recruiting motion
that brings on all of those people, but
also is out looking for a much morebespoke kind of stuff. Like
there was one position we had thatwas looking for a scale of developers,
(22:49):
which is a fairly,you know, uncommon programing language.
And that was a lot of workbecause those people are hard to find.
So you're,you're out there doing that motion
of looking for groups of peoplewho might know scale.
You are in the kind of technology groupsthat you're talking about on Facebook
or on Twitter or X or whatever, or,you know, and various different places,
(23:10):
and then contacting all of them and tryingto get in contact with them, you know?
So it's just a
for us, it's a very large outreach motionor we're doing this all the time
and tryingto get as wide a network as we can
so that we can find the best peoplethat are it doesn't matter to us,
you know, where they are in Latin America,you know what town they're in.
And yeah, they can be a little bitdifficult sometimes, but yeah,
(23:31):
right.
And I think, you know,
that that's a big component when you sayit can be a little bit difficult just to
put some numbers around that.
What percentage of peoplewould you say where you reach out
cold, actually respond back,
Oh, oh, probably five ish percent.
Yeah, you're talking it depends.
(23:52):
I would say longer term, it'sprobably a little bit higher than that.
Just because it will hit them multipletimes and kind of keep pestering us.
It's a marketing motion.
At the end of the day,it's a little bit easier
to get more uptakebecause you're offering jobs in the US.
So you know, you get a little bit betterresponse rate, but there's lots of people
who aren't looking for a jobor are happy with what they're doing.
They're not going to respond to you,you know.
But other than that, there's alwaysthe kind of warm and down side of that,
(24:15):
which is word posting jobs or posting jobsall over the local posting boards,
the LinkedIn boards,the major posting boards.
You know,there's lots of different posting places
and then you get a lot of warm inboundfrom that kind of thing.
And that's that's a total differenceand it kind of uptake place.
But, you know,
those people are very interestedin finding a job
and they're very interested in the jobthat's currently posted.
So there's two sides of that coinhappening at all times.
(24:37):
So it's a little bit
it's a little bit different,but the cold out now
and yet you're not it's not a hugeit's not hugely successful on its site.
It is it is challenging.
And, you know, it's interestingbecause the reason I asked is
I think sometimes people start outand they they fully expect
that it should be like a 50% minimumresponse rate.
And the reality of it is is is far lower.
(25:00):
And so,you know, when it comes to the outreach
and the outbound component of things,are there certain kind of personalities
that you're looking at or looking forwhen you're reaching out?
Or is this mostly about justtheir specific credentials?
Yeah, I think on outreach,you're primarily looking for skills
(25:20):
and credentials.
You're looking for somebody
who looks like they could fit the profileof somebody who could do the position.
And then you get into interviewing.
That's when you find out
what their personality is like,what their cultural cities like.
And then, you know, oncekind of you're reaching out,
you're hopefully looking for somebodywho has experience doing remote work
so that you don't really have to spin theminto that and like, train them up on on
(25:41):
how remote work works.
But for the most part, you know, we'relooking for people who would otherwise
match the qualifications of here'sthe job posting, here's what's
what's needed, here's the remote work,you know, here's the time zone.
But that's generally going to fit inwith your very off on coasts or something.
Yeah.
And then you get into pre vetting,you know,
you get into our initial roundsof interviews,
(26:01):
which happenedbefore a client would ever see them.
And that sort of tells us, you know,whether they they fit that kind of model.
Right.
Are they are they go getters, are they,you know, are they hungry essentially?
Do they look like they're going to go
solve a problem by themselvesand really take care of this problem?
Right.
And so, you know, part of that,speaking of problems and solving problems,
(26:22):
I think a big part ofany kind of hiring is compliance.
And so how do you all
keep track of compliancein these various countries?
And are there third party companiesyou're using to help with compliance
and payroll?
Are you dealing with it directly?
So for the most part,we're dealing with it directly.
We have the employer of record, anagent of record in most of the countries.
(26:44):
And there's a couplewhere we use a third party.
We have contractsfor the people themselves in done
by lawyers in the homecountry with us using our entity
in the US or our Colombian entity,but primarily our US entity.
And then all of that contracting is donedirectly through us in in their home
language, which is Spanish,except for Brazil, where it's Portuguese
(27:07):
and then,you know, everything in the US side.
So everything on the clientside is done with us as a U.S.
company.
So there's nothing for the clientis seeing an international touch point.
Everything is done as a US company,invoicing them as a US company, you know,
the whole the whole thing.
They're we handle all the h.r.
We handle all the payments.
We handle payments down to them.
(27:28):
Anything that needs to be donefor benefits and taxes based on the home
countries needs are taken care ofwith that contracting that we have set up.
And i think a big part in the big concernfor people is the productivity
of their remote workers.
Once you've hiredthem, compliance is fine.
Are there any tools or tacticsthat you recommend
(27:49):
to help ensure the productivityof remote workers without necessarily
having them feelas if you're micromanaging them?
Yeah.
I mean, number one, of course,is always to know what you expect, right?
Have good you know,everybody talks about KPIs, right,
But have a good idea of what it is
that needs to be accomplishedon a regular basis
and make sure that they're meetingthose tasks.
(28:09):
You know, you should
you should if you're hiring somebody,you should have a very clear idea
of what it is you're hiring them to doand what you expect of them over the
longer term, whether that be, you know,the next six months, next five years.
And what does that look like foryou for them to be accomplishing the tasks
that they're getting done?
Then there's also software we use hubstaffinternally that tracks all their hours
that, you know, takes screenshotsof your screen to make sure you're
(28:32):
on task and doing all those things.
Nobody's really looking at that.
But every now
and now and then you have an issue
and somebody comes back to you and says,Hey, I think that they're, you know,
falsifying these timesheetsor something like that.
And then you can go look and say,okay, well, were they actually working?
Was really just clickingrandomly on a screen or something.
So there's tools to measure, you know,that things are actually getting done.
(28:54):
But I come back to the primarything is making sure that like a you know,
what the work is that needs to be done.
And B,how do you measure that it's being done.
How are you making
sure that it's being done effectivelyand moving your business forward?
Right, Because every position you hire isjust it's an investment.
It's an investment in your business.
And the idea is for thisto be moving a process forward
in a way that you shouldn't be havingto micromanage if you're micromanaging it.
(29:17):
And that's that's astill a problem for you right now.
So yeah, I think it's it's majorly onmaking sure you know what the tasking is
and making sure it's getting done and getting done the way you need it to get done.
Right?
Absolutely.
And so, you know,
where do you foresee the futureof remote work in the next 5 to 10 years?
Do you think it's going to be moreor less the same
(29:37):
that as it is now, Or do you think it'sgoing to be different?
And if you think it'sgoing to be different,
how do you thinkit's going to be different?
It's a good question. I'm
I lean towards saying it'sbasically going to be the same.
I'm not sure how much differentit could be.
You know, again, we have people
everybody we have on board is workingfull time remotely.
So there's no there's not a lot of changegoing on there.
(30:00):
There's a lot of stuff.
You know, there's a lot of talk about
AI and all these different piecesthat are coming up
and how that might change how people workand how people do things.
And and honestly, it's changed how we wereI mean, we we use it
internally all the time.
And, you know, it's it changeshow you get things
done in the way,you know, your processes essentially.
But remote work itselfhasn't actually changed.
(30:20):
You need somebody to be available
and be online and be thoughtfuland be proactive and be a problem solver
and be there tackling the issuesthat you have in order to get things done.
And I don't necessarily know thatthat changes in any way, because I think
that's the same kind of thing
we've been doing for,you know, a couple of hundred years now.
You know, as as,you know, capital is countries like the
(30:42):
the idea is to be productiveand get work done.
And I don't know thatthat's going to change in any major way.
Maybe the way we connect will maybe bettertools will come along.
But the tools we have arepretty solid at the moment.
You know, there's there's athere's always another communication tool.
There's always another way to connect.
But how much can you really add?
(31:03):
You know, people don't want to beon a video call all day long.
Most people don't really like
being on video calls much at all,other than when they need to be.
So, you know, you have that.
You have, you know,different communication platforms
and text communication.
We use Microsoft,
so we're on teams, but, you know, there'sSlack and Google and everything else.
They're always coming up with new waysto to maintain interactivity
(31:26):
and maintain connectivity.
But I'm
not sure that I have a clear ideaon how it could be vastly better
or vastly different because it's alreadyvery effective as long as you're doing it
right and getting the right peopleon board to do what you need done.
Right? Absolutely.
And speaking of effectivenessand getting the right people on board,
you know, for somebodywho's considering hiring remote staff
(31:48):
and making the decision of whether they gowith an agency such as yours
or try to go their own route,
what advice would you give them and why?
And, you know, would that invites changedepending on how large
they've gotten?
Well, my advice would be go try.
(32:08):
Go see what you can find. Go on, go, go.
Put the motion and go put the effort inand try to find good candidates
for your positionsand try to interview some people
and try to find somebodythat really fits for you.
You know, I'm I'm my team is here.
We're we're always recruiting.We're always working.
I know I can find good talent.
I know I can find great fits for people.We do it every single day.
But I think the best way to find outthat you need that kind of service
(32:31):
is to go try and do itand see if it's difficult for you.
Right?
If you're the kind of personthat really enjoys
going through a couple hundred resumesin order to schedule out
a couple dozen interviews,in order to find out
that most of them were in a fitin the first place.
And please enjoy yourself and have fun.
You know, if you don't want to do that,you don't want to go through that
(32:52):
problem set.
And we're here to we're hereto whittle that down to, you know, two
or three profiles for you and really showyou what's available out there.
But the best wayto find out what your needs are
and what you're really looking foris to go try to do it yourself.
As always.
You know, I kind of do thatwith every process that we implement
is that I think I think I should knowhow everything works right now.
(33:13):
That's not true.I don't know how everything works.
I'm not created everything.
But, you know,the first attempt is usually by me.
So the first attempt is by somebody else.
It's it's kind of hard to knowwhether it's successful or not, you know?
So, yeah, absolutely.
And so when it comes to workingwith your company, Chris,
where can they find you and how doeshow does pricing for that work.
(33:36):
Yeah well remote teams dot comyou can also find me on LinkedIn.
Chris Brown while remote teamsyou know we're here we're available
pricing is really pretty straightforward.
It really depends on the rolethat you need
and the position that you're looking for.
Our pricing model is all includedin the hourly rate that we give people.
So there's no upfront cost,
there's no retainer costs, there'sno upfront fees or anything like that.
(33:59):
You know, you just give me a call.
I take all your information, I get an ideaof what it is you're looking for,
and then we go out and we find someprofiles that match what we discussed,
and then we send those to you,and then those will have a,
you know, an hourly rate attached to them.
And and then you get to see, you know,what is the profile,
what is the experience level,what is the skill set
and what is the price range for thatskill set?
(34:20):
Generally, we're saving 30plus over US salary costs.
I mean, remember, you're not payingyou know, you're not paying
payroll taxes, you're not
paying Social Security taxes Like there'syou're not paying us benefits.
So there's a massive amount of savingsall across the entire board,
especially when you look at total compthat the savings can be really large.
(34:42):
So yeah, it's a fairly straightforwardprocess for us and we try to make it
as clear, transparent and simpleas possible for our clients, you know,
our contracts are month to month,
but those are contracts with usthat are month to month.
If you have any issues with talent,
you know, we're happy to help you offboard that talent basically as quickly
as you need.
And find more people for that position,which means that I'm not holding
(35:04):
you down to six monthor one year contracts.
I'm not holding you into the long term.
If my value propositionisn't actually valuable to you,
you're not going to stay aroundas a client.
I don't want you to write.
So I'm looking for peoplewho really get a win win out of this.
They get they get great people,they get get pricing and the people
that work for them are havinga, you know, a great job because of it.
And they get to work with people in the USand they get to work in English
(35:27):
and there's just there's benefitson both sides, right?
Absolutely.
And so just to put that into perspectivein terms of realistically
what somebody might be looking at,can you give us a range in terms of
the hourly rate that somebody
might be paying your companyin the type of position?
Yeah, sure.
So I mean, general marketing people,you know, if you're looking for digital
(35:48):
ad specialist, you'relooking at the 15 to $20 an hour range.
If you're looking for virtual assistants,generally about $10 an hour
for somebody that's going to be doing backend data entry kind of stuff,
they'll all be English speaking.
Of course,
if you needsomebody who's going to be on the phone
speaking English to English speakingclients who are looking 15 to $20 an hour
there, as you get into higher endpositions,
(36:10):
you get into developers like webdevelopers, you know, 25, $30 an hour.
And then up from there, you know,
as you get into specialty developers,they get higher and higher.
But again, it's always it's alwaysgoing to be competitive versus US costs.
Like very competitive,
right?
Yes, absolutely.
And the challengeswith the United States are, you know,
(36:31):
the cost continue increasingwhen it comes to employee benefits, etc.,
especially in places like Californiawhere my law firm is based.
Yeah, California.
In New York,I get a lot of calls from people.
People just can't handle the amountof cost that it's involved in U.S.
workers anymore, right? Yes.
So, Chris, thank you so much
for joining me todayand enlightening us with
(36:55):
some really good insightsin terms of remote staffing,
because I have no doubt thatthis will continue to be a growing part
of the workforce into the futurefor the United States due to the increased
scrutiny and challenges when it comesto labor laws and expenses and taxes here.
So again, thank you so much for sharing
(37:16):
some of your wisdom and knowledgethat you've learned over the years.
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.Thank you for the time here.
It was great talking to you and you know,tell your listeners, please go,
go look at Latin America for for talent.
It doesn't have to be through mein any way.
Like, please go searchbecause there's amazing people out there
and there's amazing talentand it's really going to broaden
your your availabilityand your horizons for your business.
(37:39):
Yeah, I love that. And I agree with that.
And to all the listeners,thank you all for joining.
Hope you got a lot out of this.
I knowI did during this conversation with Chris.
And if you haven't alreadymake sure you like and subscribe
so that you hearwhen the latest podcast is dropping
so we can continue helping youand your business thrive into the future.
Thank you and I'll see you next time.
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