September 9, 2025 • 34 mins
Scaling past seven figures brings incredible opportunities — but it also exposes new bottlenecks. If you’ve ever felt like your in-house team can’t keep up, or you’ve struggled with communication gaps and rising costs, this episode will give you a proven alternative.
I’m joined by Chris Brown, Partner and CTO at Wow Remote Teams, a staffing and recruiting firm that sources top-tier talent from Latin America for U.S. companies. With nearly two decades of technology and entrepreneurial experience, Chris has built and scaled businesses using agency remote teams that drive efficiency, cut costs, and eliminate the handoff headaches that slow growth.
We explore how to build agency remote teams that align on culture, time zones, and performance expectations, while avoiding the burnout and bottlenecks that come from traditional hiring. You’ll walk away with practical strategies to structure your talent pipeline, level up your leadership, and scale your agency with confidence.
Books Mentioned
- Poor Charlie’s Almanac by Charles T. Munger
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
You can learn more about Chris Brown and his work at wowremoteteams.com. You’ll also find him on LinkedIn.
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
- Free 30-Minute Discovery Call:
Ready to elevate your business? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Dr. William Attaway and start your journey to success.
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Connect with Dr. William Attaway:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. William Attaway (00:00):
I'm excited today to have Chris Brown on
the podcast.
Chris is partner and CTO at WowRemote Teams, a staffing and
recruiting firm focused onsourcing amazing talent from
Latin America for US companies.
Chris brings nearly two decadesof technology experience to the
space, helping to increaseefficiency and reduce costs.
(00:22):
Chris, I'm so glad you're here,man.
Thanks for being on the show.
Chris Brown (00:26):
Of course.
Thanks for having me, William.
It's great to be here.
Intro (00:32):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway is your hostauthor and leadership and
executive coach, dr.
Dr. William Attaway (00:46):
William Attaway.
Yeah, I'd love to start withyou sharing some of your story
with our listeners, Chris,particularly around your journey
and your development as aleader.
How did you get started?
Chris Brown (00:59):
How did I get started?
I mean, that goes way back, ofcourse.
I've been an entrepreneur forforever.
Essentially I've been.
When I was a teenager, I wasselling things on the internet
and building things and Iactually got really into
entrepreneurship my wholefamily's entrepreneurs.
They own businesses and runthings and own a lot of real
(01:20):
estate and do the whole thinglike build our own world.
Essentially, I really gotstarted selling pieces, pieces
out of video games.
So I would play you know I'dplay online video games, mmos
like uh, back you know I'mgetting old now.
So back when I was a teenager,it was like everquest and the
world of warcraft.
Um, you know I'd play those andsell pieces out of those games
(01:42):
and sell gold and sell all thosethings and that funded some
international travel that Iwanted to do.
I went to Australia when I waslike 17 that I had paid for by
selling stuff on video games,yeah, so you know it all started
way back then of you know howdo you do this?
Like you know, I had jobs.
I was.
You know I always had a job.
I always had to work.
(02:02):
You have to do the normal thing, but there's a whole other side
path in life of how do youachieve your goals and how do
you get to where you're tryingto go.
And part of that for me hasalways been like this idea of
freedom, but more than just likefreedom, but, like you know,
location independence, financialindependence, the ability to
(02:22):
live life on my terms, which isa bit of a cliche kind of thing
to say but it's really been afocus of how I've lived my life
and how I've developed thesebusinesses and systems and
operating the operating systemof life right, the operating
system of how do I do this?
Like I said when we werechatting before, you know, we're
in Montana currently.
(02:44):
We're from Phoenix.
It's August 4th today, soPhoenix is very hot.
It's probably 110 or somethingthere right now, you know.
So I need to not be in Phoenix.
Why would I be in Phoenix?
It's 110 degrees.
So part of this entire journeyhas been you know, how do I do
that, how do I live that life,how do I do the things I want to
do?
For a long time there was a lotof travel focus there and I say
(03:07):
that as if it's not still right.
I'm talking about I'm inMontana today, like I still
travel a lot.
It's a major part of life.
But there was a lot ofinternational travel.
You know I live, I went throughall over, all over Southeast
Asia and Europe and, you know,all through Central and South
America.
I lived in Colombia for fiveyears, which is part of how we
(03:28):
got into this conversation today, and all of those travels.
Generally it's always beenlong-term stuff.
I'm not like a vacation kind ofguy, like it's always been.
I want to go somewhere, I wantto stay there, I want to live
there, I want to see what lifeis like in a different place and
really get an understanding ofwhat's the difference and what's
great and what's beautiful andwhat's the food like.
(03:48):
I'm a big foodie.
You know it's always just howgood is the food?
Where's the best food?
And the answer is Mexico.
It's always Mexico.
My wife likes to fight with meand say it's Peru, but it's
Mexico, yeah, um, yeah.
(04:11):
So you know, in that, in thatrealm, in that, in that kind of
direction, you end up with a lotof like how do you do this
better?
Essentially, like, how do you?
You know, coming back toleadership, like to build these
things requires other people.
I, I wish I could do it allmyself.
I maybe I don't wish I could doit all myself.
Why would I want't wish I coulddo it all myself?
Why would I want to do that?
It requires other people.
You need a team, you need otherpeople that are on board with
you, that are working towardsthe same goal, that are excited
(04:31):
for the thing you're doing andworking on it with you not just
for you, but with you.
And to get there, you have tolearn how to manage other people
and not just manage like didyou get your work done?
Are you hitting your KPIs?
Are the expectations being met?
But manage them.
What makes them excited?
What brings them to the table?
Why are they here?
Why are they going to stay here?
(04:52):
Why are they going to work onthis thing with me?
You know, are they aligned?
Are they in the same mindset?
Do they want the same things?
If so, this works out a lotbetter, right?
If we're all kind of going thesame place, then we all get to
go there together.
So there's all these pieces andI don't know if I'm just off on
a tangent at this point, butthere's all these pieces that
have to come together and youknow, my experience of doing
(05:15):
this has been to learn to do.
That was never a thing.
I was taught.
You know, I went to university,I have degrees, I have, you
know, I have this whole othertechnical side that was part of
this journey of how do you dothese things and where can I go
and make a lot of money,essentially, but these things
weren't a part of that.
(05:35):
How do you really integrate ateam?
How do you be an effectiveleader?
Not just you know, here's atextbook about leadership and
you need to make sure peoplehave the right.
You know this, that and theother, but more like, how do you
actually figure out whatsomeone needs?
How do you understand them at apersonal level in order to find
that and I'm not saying like Iunderstand this a hundred
percent this is a journey, right, this is part of the process.
(05:58):
Like I am in this today, I'mtrying to figure this out and
figuring it out.
I mean, I have 20 years ofbusiness experience plus.
I'm 40 now and I've been doingthis since I was a teenager.
I have a lot of experience anda lot of time in market trying
to help other people achievetheir goals while achieving my
goal.
So, yeah, I'm not sure I feellike I'm just ranting at this
(06:21):
point, but it's somewhere inthere.
There's an answer in there.
Dr. William Attaway (06:25):
Well, no, I love that.
I love what you said about thedistinction between the
education that you got, thedegrees, all the things that
you've learned, and learning howto lead other people, because
that is a distinction that Ithink is important.
Leadership is something that isexecuted and learned as you are
executing.
You can read hundreds of bookson leadership, I have right, but
(06:49):
you learn how to lead by doingit, and I think that's where
there's been no wastedexperience in your life.
Everything that you havedescribed there, and so much
more, has contributed to makeyou into the leader and the
person that you are now.
Chris Brown (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
I think that's true about justabout everything in life.
That's why we I mean educationis very important and it gives
you a solid basis and foundationand you know, you can spread
wide and have more ideas and abetter understanding of this
kind of multimodal sort of youknow, polymath sort of
understanding of the world.
But if you don't go and do itlike I think failure is one of
(07:24):
the world, but if you don't goand do it like I think failure
is one of the most usefulprocesses that there is, and I
think speaking about failure andtalking about failures is, I
don't know.
People are afraid of it, peopleare worried about it, people
think it's like a negative mark,you know.
But it's not.
It's how you learn, it's whereyou, it's where the rubber meets
the road.
Essentially, you got to put itinto practice and when you put
it into practice it's not goingto work and that's when you
(07:45):
learn how it actually works.
Dr. William Attaway (07:53):
Well, I think failure is part of the
journey to success.
I don't know anybody who hasbeen successful at anything
without experiencing failure atcertain points.
But the key there is notover-identifying with it and
saying, well then, I'm a failurebecause I felt, no, no, no, no.
Failure is an event, it's not aperson, right, yeah?
And I think that's important.
Chris Brown (08:09):
Right, exactly, unless you make it unless you
decide it is.
Dr. William Attaway (08:13):
If you choose, if you choose, okay.
But, you get to choose.
Chris Brown (08:18):
Yeah, yeah, you get to choose and you also get to.
You get to choose how you reactto it, as with everything,
right, that is kind of the stoicidea of how do we, how do we
manage ourselves?
Right, like, you get to choosewhat your reaction to that event
is.
If you decide to lean in andtake it personally, as if you
you know.
Yeah, that whole conversationit is a learning experience.
(08:39):
It is a thing to aim for in themath in the process of getting
to success.
In fact, I don't know if weknow what success is without
failure.
You know, it's like you don'tknow that you have good luck
unless you have bad luck.
If all you have is good luck,you have no idea that you have
good luck.
It's the same with success.
Dr. William Attaway (08:58):
If you're immediately successful.
Chris Brown (09:00):
You have no idea.
I mean within reason.
If you're a billionaire atfirst chance, you probably know
you're successful, if that'syour measure of success.
Dr. William Attaway (09:10):
Right yeah, and that's the other piece.
You get to choose what yourmeasure of success is.
You know, for some, maybe it isdollars in the bank, For some,
it's the freedom that youdescribed.
You know the location freedomor the time freedom.
You know the location freedomor the time freedom, you know.
I think we have to understandthat there's not one definition
(09:31):
of success that rules them all,that one size fits all.
You know you get to decide.
What does success look like?
What will success look like?
Where am I aiming, when am I,when do I want to be and how do
I get from here to there?
I think this is what we get todo as leaders.
We get to not just chart thatpath for ourselves, but we get
to help other people andencourage them and empower them
and equip them.
Chris Brown (09:52):
And also give them some perspective that it's
possible sometimes.
Dr. William Attaway (09:57):
You can do this.
Chris Brown (10:00):
You can be this way , you can live like this.
You just have to A you have toknow it's possible, and B you
have to know how to go get itand do the work.
Do the work.
Yeah, you always got to do thework, that's right.
That's step zero.
You got to do the work.
Dr. William Attaway (10:16):
And yet shocking how many times people
think they don't have to.
They can avoid that, you know.
Chris Brown (10:21):
Yeah, but I mean that's another failure.
Step right A hundred percent.
Dr. William Attaway (10:27):
So I would love for you to share a little
bit about WoW remote teams.
You know a lot of the folks whoare listening lead teams, many
of whom members are remote, butsome have not yet taken that
step and there's a struggle inthis idea like well, man, you
know what does it look like andwhy should I consider?
You know, latam when I'mthinking about remote teams
(10:47):
members.
Chris Brown (10:52):
You know what makes that different from, you know,
any other part of the world.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean for us, because our clients are US
companies.
Right, we're a US company.
I'm an American, obviously frommy accent.
For us, you know, it's a reallygood talent pool.
They're very culturally aligned, you know, and they're also
very time zone aligned, so thatmakes a big difference.
We get a lot of people callingus who have talent in other
(11:14):
places in the world and you knowthey're having problems with
the time zone thing where youknow the person that they have
is working at two o'clock in themorning.
Maybe that's great.
I like to say I'm very biased,right, I'm getting the calls of
the people that are unhappy withthat situation.
So that situation works.
It works all day.
There's a lot of very largecompanies and a lot of people
doing, you know, remote workfrom from wherever from the
(11:35):
other side of the planet, butthat time zone alignment is
really impactful and reallyimportant.
Everybody on my team is fromLatin America and it's.
You know, everybody works thesame shift.
Everybody's on during the day.
We all get up.
You know we have our morningmeetings at 8.06 AM and for you
know, it's gotta be, it's gottabe a weird time.
(11:57):
It helps people get online.
I don't know what it is aboutit, but if it's eight, people
don't show up.
It's 8.06.
Everybody's there.
It's a great thing.
Wow, yeah, it works.
Good tip.
Dr. William Attaway (12:03):
That's good .
Chris Brown (12:05):
But you know, everybody's online at 8 AM.
Some people had started an hourearlier, some people start an
hour later.
It just depends on their joband what the overlap looks like.
You know, and everybody'sonline throughout the rest of
the day.
Basically, everybody on my teamis full time, so you get
complete overlap, right.
I'm here, I'm working, I'mready to go, my partner is here,
(12:26):
she's working, she's ready togo, and all of our team is
online at the same time.
Anything happens, everything weneed to know about.
There's no disconnect.
There's no strange oddities,there's no.
This email came in and then itwent out wrong and then there's
a 12-hour gap and now we'rereplying to a client Like I
don't like that.
You know, I don't like thosegaps.
That doesn't mean thateverybody has to be.
(12:48):
You know.
That way you can workdifferently, but for me that's
important and for me it worksreally well and for my clients
it seems to be important andworks really well.
Right, we're online, we'reworking, we're top of mind right
now.
I don't want to think aboutthis at 4 am.
I don't want to wake up at 7and have client issues from
yesterday that didn't getreplied to till 4 am, that are
still, um.
So you know that.
(13:10):
The other thing is just talentpool.
There's a huge talent pool inLatin America and there's a
really strong talent pool, verywell educated, they're very well
experienced.
They have a lot of roots withUS and American companies, right
?
Like you know, all of theseLatin American companies, a
major basis of their economiesis the US economy.
(13:30):
You know, the US economy is thedriver of the economy in this
hemisphere, essentially Not theplanet really, but in this
hemisphere we are the dominantfactor.
Everything that happens aroundus is connected to us and Latin
America.
A lot of them come from, youknow, deep roots of culture that
(13:51):
have been influenced by USmethodology.
Our business methodology issomewhat unique.
It's why we're so dominant,it's why we're good at what we
do, right, we dominate everymarket on this planet,
essentially.
Maybe not you know industrialexports so much anymore, but we
did for a time and then we movedon, which is to say that, you
(14:11):
know, the Latin American systemsare built basically the same
way, the education systems arebuilt basically the same way.
Everything is very correlatedand just you know, there, for
you, it all works really welltogether.
And then you have this otherpiece, which is language and
language.
Right.
All of Latin America speaksSpanish, except for Brazil.
(14:31):
They speak Portuguese, butEnglish is really strong
throughout.
That doesn't mean everybodyspeaks English Now, you can find
a lot of people that don't butEnglish is very strong
throughout.
English is a highly regardedthing throughout them.
And that also comes back toAmerica's the dominant force.
They know that America is thedominant economy.
If you want to succeed, if youreally want to grow, if you want
(14:53):
to come up, you're going to go,try to learn English and it's
going to be part of yourcurriculum, right?
My wife and my partner is fromBogota, colombia.
I met her while I was living inColombia and she speaks perfect
English, speaks great English.
Right, she learned English herentire life.
She had it in school, she hadit in media, she had it in
everything.
Right, she learned English herentire life.
She had it in school, she hadit in media, she had it in
(15:14):
everything.
And then you add another layerto that, which is technology.
Right, we have the internet, wehave this.
Like me and you, where are youright now?
Where are you located?
Dr. William Attaway (15:22):
I'm outside of Washington DC.
Chris Brown (15:24):
Okay, yeah, you're 2000 miles away from me, right,
and we can have an in-person,immediate, well, in-person,
digital, digital, in-person,immediate, face-to-face
conversation.
That's true about everyreaction in the world right now.
Right, all of these people inLatin America.
They're consuming US content.
Of course, we're the biggestcontent creator on the planet.
They're consuming content inEnglish.
(15:46):
They're consuming all of ourstuff all the time.
There's radio, there's music,there's TV, there's movies.
All of this is just beingstreamed and given, right, then
there's no longer adifferentiation.
You don't have to go to themovie theater and watch a movie
and you know, you can watch thesame episode of Friends 7,500
times until you know every wordthat they've said.
And, yeah, like they'relearning, they're just
(16:08):
vicariously, just absorbingEnglish because it's just, we're
such a massive culturalpowerhouse, so they know our
culture.
Their basis is partly ourculture.
They have their own cultures,right, they're all different.
They all work their own way.
This is not to say that Americadominates everything, but it's
to say that we're aligned andthat alignment really brings a
(16:31):
lot of power to US businesses,because you get to go to a
talent pool that's much largerthan you were previously
experiencing and you get to findpeople that are very well
educated, very adept at whatthey do, probably very well
experienced.
There's huge corporations ofevery kind that you could
imagine all throughout LatinAmerica.
There's every industry.
(16:51):
There's every type of justevery type of market, every type
of economy, everything you canimagine.
There's somewhere in LatinAmerica that has that kind of
economy, has that kind ofindustry, has that kind of
production modality and you cantap into those resources.
And especially, coming at it asan American company, you're
going to offer them higher ratesand a better compensation
(17:13):
package.
Then they're going to getoffered in their home country.
So now you have this dual winsituation where you're coming at
people that are veryexperienced, very talented, very
adept, and you're coming with acompensation package that they
couldn't get in their homecountry.
Like that's win-win, becausethat compensation package is
(17:33):
going to be less than you'regoing to pay Americans.
Like it's almost always there'sthere's exceptions at the top
end.
Of course you can, you can getinto it, but yeah, you're,
you're saving money, right,you're going into.
It's an arbitrage play at thatpoint on the on the finance side
of it.
And yeah, you get amazingpeople, amazing talent, amazing
alignment, better prices andit's just, it's a huge win.
(17:58):
It's a huge win in everydirection essentially and you
know, I'm I'm the guy with thecompany like there's a bit of a
sales pitch in there but justlike I used this service before
I came into this company my oldcompany I was I had an ecommerce
company selling medical anddental supplies and we had a CSR
team.
We replaced them with LatinAmerican staff.
(18:18):
We had our development team.
We replaced them with LatinAmerican staff and it was
fantastic.
We saved money.
The KPIs got better.
You know like we, we upscaledour operation for less money
doing it through Latin America.
Part of that was having a goodresource.
You know, I I was I was usingmy partner as the resource to
(18:40):
start finding those people.
She's very good, she's veryadept.
She was an executive in aneducation company in Columbia
before moving to the U S, soshe's very well rooted and has
very good connections andnetwork and, of course, very
smart Um.
But using that, using thatnetwork, bringing that in, using
(19:01):
that talent pool, justcompletely changed the base
operation of that company.
By the time I left that company, the only people left in the US
were the people that wereneeded to be there, like the
forklift operator and the officemanager.
Wow, everybody else, everybodythat could be remote, was from
Latin America.
And again, that was also youknow again, going back to the
way I've structured my life andmy businesses that one was also
(19:24):
structured to be as remote aspossible.
Now there was a warehouse,there was physical inventory.
It was a large operation butthe majority of the positions
were built in a way that nobodyhad to go to that office.
They have the optionality.
If you really wanted to go toMesa, arizona, and go to a
warehouse, have fun.
There's a desk, you can use it.
I don't know why you're goingto, but have fun, you know.
(19:45):
But once we saw the LatinAmerican option, it just took
over.
You know the hiring process ofthe organization because it was
just better.
I mean, my, my partner and herrecruiting team were far better
at finding good people than wewere in the in our own company,
(20:05):
because we didn't have adedicated recruiting team.
Why would we?
We're an e-commerce with awarehouse.
You know we need we need 15people at any given time.
So I'm not, I don't want tohire a recruiter as well.
So you're kind of doing ityourself, right?
You have your operationsofficer kind of acting as
recruiter and that works well.
They know what you need.
They're probably good atfinding stuff, but they're never
(20:26):
as good as a dedicatedrecruiting team right, they're
not as good as somebody whosejob it is to interview people
and who enjoys interviewingpeople.
You know it makes a difference.
It makes a huge difference.
Dr. William Attaway (20:39):
It really does.
Yeah, you know a couple ofthings you keyed into there that
I want to follow up on.
One was the cost thing Mostpeople think about.
You know sourcing talentoffshore as a cost being the
primary reason you would do that.
One of the things you talkedabout was how it's not just a
matter of a benefit for thebusinesses in the US to think
(21:02):
offshore talent.
It's not just for a costbenefit for you, it's also for
them.
You know you're actually givingthem an opportunity at a wage
and a benefit package that theycould not achieve without that.
I think that's important.
One of the key themes that Italk about frequently when it
comes to leadership is seeingthe people that you lead not
(21:25):
just as cogs in a machine, butas actual 3D human beings, right
, and people that have hopes anddreams of their own.
It sounds like and feel free tocorrect me if I'm off, but it
sounds like that is how you viewthis entire thing, as you're
trying to find a winningsituation for everybody involved
the employer and the employee.
(21:47):
You know the team lead and theteam member, so that everybody
wins.
Is that accurate?
Chris Brown (21:54):
Oh, that's 100%.
The underlying model, that'swhat underpins this business
working, is that the people youhire have to be happy.
Essentially, they have to befulfilled, they have to be well
compensated, they have to begetting what they want out of
life and out of your position inorder to be a long-term, stable
(22:17):
asset to your company.
And yeah, the only way you getthere is for them to be well
compensated, be well maintained,be well cared for.
And in order for that to happen, you have to pay a good salary,
pay a good wage, have goodbenefits.
You know you have to take careof them, make sure that they
know what their time off is andare able to take it and aren't
(22:37):
over pressured and aren'toverworked.
And yeah, I mean that's part ofpart of it is client, client
intake really, because you knowfinding candidates, finding good
people, making sure they'rewell-compensated.
It's very important.
Again, it's an underpinning ofour business.
It's part of the point of theoperation is, you know, bringing
(23:00):
better opportunities to peoplein Latin America.
That's kind of part of how thisstarted.
It also started, as you know,we can find it for Americans and
there's a business model.
But clients, you know checkingclients, intaking clients,
seeing if a client is a good fitis part of that motion, and
that is that question of like.
You know, what is your, what isyour business's policy, what is
(23:23):
your outlook on how this works?
Are you treating this person asa disposable contractor?
If so, I'm not the right guyfor you.
I don't really want yourbusiness.
I mean, there's a lot of them.
You know there's plenty ofbusiness out there for you.
You can go find those people,but I don't want to be involved
in that situation.
So part of it is, you know,assessing the clients that are
coming in and making sure thatyou know, is your budget for
(23:46):
this position reasonable?
And I get a lot of client callsthat it's not a reasonable
budget for the position, andthat's might just be my
positioning in the market.
Right, we're a little bit moremid level at this point, not at
the, you know, not entry orbottom level.
So a little bit of that ispositioning, but also a little
bit of that is just thatexpectation that you're kind of
(24:06):
alluding to, which is you knowwe're coming at this to save
money, yeah, okay, well, youknow you can try to hire
somebody at $7 an hour from thePhilippines or something, but at
the end of the day, you'regoing to get what you pay for.
You're going to save money bygoing to Latin America.
You're going to save money bygoing to the Philippines, that
(24:26):
doesn't mean it's going to bethe cheapest thing you've ever
seen.
Right, you get what you pay for, that's well said.
Dr. William Attaway (24:35):
Let's talk about you for a minute.
In your journey, as youdescribed, kind of where you've
been, what you've been through,what you've led, you know what
you have to do today, for WOWrequires more of you than it did
five years ago, and five yearsfrom now, wow is going to
require even more.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
(24:59):
business, your clients, yourteams are going to need you to
have in the days ahead?
Chris Brown (25:06):
I mean, the answer is a little bit cliche, which is
this like lifelong learningthing which you know, I think
everybody kind of leans into andI think everybody does, but
really it's, it's thefundamental basis of how do you
continue, how do you grow?
You know, growing as as aleader, growing as the business
leader, growing, as you know,the operational head, is just
(25:27):
another piece of everything elsewe have to grow at in life.
Every day is is new, every dayis a new challenge.
Every day there's anotherlittle piece that you have to
learn and figure out and I thinkthat's just this.
You know, it's this continuedcuriosity for me, which is just
always looking for somethinginteresting, something
interesting that helps along theway.
(25:49):
You know, it's not necessarilyjust blind, shotgun approach to
interesting things, which isbasically like reels at this
point, you know.
But more, more kind of focusedinterest is, if you're, for me.
I don't know if this is alwaystrue, but for me, when something
, when a topic is top of mind,when something's kind of
bothering me, when something'sout there like I just this, this
(26:11):
is eating at me, it could bebetter, right, something in this
universe kind of brings theright information my way and
that's not just like I sit thereand it comes at me, but I'm out
there searching, I'm looking,I'm reading different things and
then you know, when you havesomething top of mind that's an
issue, something that's notnecessarily connected, will
click and they'll be like, oh,but this topic's out there.
(26:33):
I didn't realize that topic wasout there.
And then you go look at it andthink about it and then you read
more on it and then you realize, oh, that really does correlate
, just not in the way I expectedit to right.
There's this kind of tangentialcorrelation to basically
everything that you can go findnew avenues in.
And as you find those newavenues, those new methodologies
, those new, just interestingtopics, they come back and they
(26:56):
wrap around.
It's like this thing I forgetthe name of it there's this
thing where, like, if you learna new word, that word's going to
pop up in the world around you,right, like you didn't realize
you were hearing it all the timeand now you know what it means
and suddenly you see the wordeverywhere.
You know there's that, but itkind of permeates everything
around us, like for me anyways,maybe that's not true for you
(27:17):
know, but in my experience, whenI see a new topic, or when I
see a new avenue or something,suddenly that kind of thing, it
just starts clicking into placewith everything else.
And a lot of times you know theway our mind works, or like my
mind works is that that clickingwill really help with that
problem solving of the thingyou're working on.
It's not going to solve theproblem, right, but it's going
(27:38):
to give you that next littlepiece, and that next little
piece is going to give you thatnext step, and that next step is
going to lead to that actionpoint.
And that action point is eithergoing to lead to failure, and
you're going to learn from it,or it's going to lead to success
.
And now you have the toolkitand then you can continue and
then it's just, you know, it'sthe the ooda loop kind of
situation, right, you'recontinually looking, you're
(27:58):
continually orienting, you'recontinually deciding and then
you're acting, and then then youlearn, because then you go back
to the first step to see ifthat action worked.
If it didn't work, which result?
Was it right?
This continual, ongoing cycleof am I doing the right thing?
Is this on?
Am I?
There's this idea from the, theCharles Munger almanac book,
(28:19):
which is avoiding stupidity,right, which is like, is this
thing stupid?
Is is what is the badconsequence of this?
Like how can I avoid stupidity?
In these motions, you know, andthose things all kind of work
together.
They coalesce into a workingoperational reality around you.
Dr. William Attaway (28:38):
I love that You've mentioned at least one
already.
I'm curious is there a bookthat you would recommend to the
leaders who are listening?
That's made a really bigdifference in your journey.
Chris Brown (28:49):
Well, that one, of course, I mean Portia Early's
Almanac is probably one of myfavorite books.
You know, it's just it's alittle bit different, right,
like there's always theseanswers of you know, atomic
Habits is an amazing book andAtomic Habits he has a
newsletter on Thursdays theemail newsletter I love it.
I love it.
It's the only newsletter that'sallowed past my unsubscribe
(29:10):
filter.
It's the only one I don't letno other newsletter gets passed,
that one I'll read everyThursday.
It's fantastic, I love it, it'sso valuable.
But Poor Charlie's Almanac isjust, it's a different thing.
It's this idea of multimodalthinking right, it's this
lattice work of thoughtprocessing and it comes back to
that thing I was talking about amoment ago, which is like ideas
(29:32):
click when you find them indifferent places.
But it has to be this networkof ideas, it has to be this
entire mesh of things that weunderstand and this mental model
that we have of the world,based on that mesh of ideas and
this information.
So you bring all these thingstogether from all these
different places and suddenlythey connect in ways you didn't
understand and it's like this uh, you know, his whole point is
(29:54):
this, this basal understandingof kind of just multiple,
multiple places.
So, like you have decentunderstanding of biology and
physics and you know psychologyand business and and as you go
moving through the world, eachof those things will kind of
give you interaction or give you, you know, input and it's you
know, especially the leadingteams.
Like you could lead all in onpsychology, but then you have
(30:17):
too much psychology.
Or you lead all in on you knowjust business, but then you just
have business.
You need.
You need a well-roundedapproach to all these things in
order to see the path ahead andget a better idea of what the
problem actually is and anddefine the problem so that you
can attack it.
Hmm.
Dr. William Attaway (30:35):
Solid.
Last question, and I ask thisone to everybody If I could, if
I had the ability to snap myfingers right now and solve one
problem in your business, whatwould you want that problem to
be?
Oh, one.
Chris Brown (30:54):
Um, I think communication is always this
sort of transient problem thatwe have.
It's not necessarily like yeah,if you could solve
communication in a way that'snot just how do we communicate,
because there's a billion waysto communicate, but are you
doing it effectively?
Are you doing it correctly?
Is the recipient understandingwhat the sender I'm not sure
(31:18):
what the other word there is issaying, right, is it being?
Is it being?
Is it coming across in the waythat it needs to come across?
Because it, it goes sidewaysall the time, especially as you
get, as you get further awayfrom in-person spoken
conversation, it gets harder andharder, right?
So you go, you know in spokenconversation, you still have
disagreements, you still havemisunderstandings.
(31:39):
I constantly, me and my wife,will have I'll say something and
she'll take it a different way,or she'll say something and
I'll take it a different way.
And then you have to iterate onthis process to find what was
the correct understanding there,what, what did you mean to say?
How did you say it and what wasI meant to think from that?
You know, and that's in person.
So you get to, you know, videochats on a call here, or you get
(32:01):
to just voice chat and then youget down to email and then you
get down to text messages andthen you get down to you know,
etc.
Etc.
Etc.
You get further and further awayfrom a good, effective,
empathetic approach to goodcommunication, effective
communication.
And you know, I don't, I don'thave an answer to that.
(32:21):
We're always working on that.
I'm always personally workingon that.
You know, how do I?
How do I get this across?
How do I make sure that, when Iget this across, the other
person gets what I'm trying tosay?
And how do I figure out how to,you know, manage what I'm
saying so that it comes acrossas clearly, as effectively and
as as impactfully, but asempathetically as possible?
And so, yeah, I think somewherein that world would be awesome.
(32:42):
There's a million otherproblems to solve, but I think
that would be if you could snapyour fingers and solve it.
Dr. William Attaway (32:47):
That would be amazing, right, I wish I
could.
That would be amazing.
You know, I ask that questionbecause I think it's so easy to
look at somebody like you fromthe outside and say, oh man,
chris, chris's journey is justup into the right.
He's never struggled withanything.
He never really has any realproblems.
you know, like I have, you knowand I think it's good for
(33:08):
everyone listening to thisepisode to understand that, no
matter where you are on theentrepreneurial journey, no
matter what level of successyou've achieved, there are
always things you would love tosolve.
There are always problems thatare still staring at you.
That you're trying to wrestleto the ground, and I think
that's very helpful andencouraging.
Chris Brown (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I agree, you know, I
would.
Just I would add that it'snever always up, and to the
right, it's always rocky.
I agree, that was just theright, it's always rocky.
I agree.
That was just one example.
There's endless examples.
Dr. William Attaway (33:41):
Chris, this has been such a great
conversation and I'm so gratefulfor your transparency and your
generosity in sharing so freelyfrom your journey and what
you've learned so far.
I know our listeners are goingto want to stay connected to you
and continue to learn from youand more about what you're doing
at WoW.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Chris Brown (34:01):
Generally the website wowremoteteamscom,
Google us or just ask ChatGPTfor good Latin American staffing
companies.
It would generally pop up.
The other way, of course, isLinkedIn, but my name is Chris
Brown, so kind of good luck.
But Chris Brown.
Wow is LinkedIn, but my name isChris Brown, so kind of good
luck.
But Chris Brown, wow, wow,teams, something like that.
You'll find me and yeah, thoseare really the best routes.
Dr. William Attaway (34:24):
We will have those links in the show
notes, including to your actualLinkedIn profile.
Chris Brown (34:28):
Yeah, please do.
Dr. William Attaway (34:31):
Chris, thank you so much for your time
today.
Chris Brown (34:33):
Yeah, thank you for having me, william, it's been a
pleasure.
I'm excited today to have Chris Brown on
the podcast.
Chris is partner and CTO at WowRemote Teams, a staffing and
recruiting firm focused onsourcing amazing talent from
Latin America for US companies.
Chris brings nearly two decadesof technology experience to the
space, helping to increaseefficiency and reduce costs.
(00:22):
Chris, I'm so glad you're here,man.
Thanks for being on the show.
Chris Brown (00:26):
Of course.
Thanks for having me, William.
It's great to be here.
Intro (00:32):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway is your hostauthor and leadership and
executive coach, dr.
Dr. William Attaway (00:46):
William Attaway.
Yeah, I'd love to start withyou sharing some of your story
with our listeners, Chris,particularly around your journey
and your development as aleader.
How did you get started?
Chris Brown (00:59):
How did I get started?
I mean, that goes way back, ofcourse.
I've been an entrepreneur forforever.
Essentially I've been.
When I was a teenager, I wasselling things on the internet
and building things and Iactually got really into
entrepreneurship my wholefamily's entrepreneurs.
They own businesses and runthings and own a lot of real
(01:20):
estate and do the whole thinglike build our own world.
Essentially, I really gotstarted selling pieces, pieces
out of video games.
So I would play you know I'dplay online video games, mmos
like uh, back you know I'mgetting old now.
So back when I was a teenager,it was like everquest and the
world of warcraft.
Um, you know I'd play those andsell pieces out of those games
(01:42):
and sell gold and sell all thosethings and that funded some
international travel that Iwanted to do.
I went to Australia when I waslike 17 that I had paid for by
selling stuff on video games,yeah, so you know it all started
way back then of you know howdo you do this?
Like you know, I had jobs.
I was.
You know I always had a job.
I always had to work.
(02:02):
You have to do the normal thing, but there's a whole other side
path in life of how do youachieve your goals and how do
you get to where you're tryingto go.
And part of that for me hasalways been like this idea of
freedom, but more than just likefreedom, but, like you know,
location independence, financialindependence, the ability to
(02:22):
live life on my terms, which isa bit of a cliche kind of thing
to say but it's really been afocus of how I've lived my life
and how I've developed thesebusinesses and systems and
operating the operating systemof life right, the operating
system of how do I do this?
Like I said when we werechatting before, you know, we're
in Montana currently.
(02:44):
We're from Phoenix.
It's August 4th today, soPhoenix is very hot.
It's probably 110 or somethingthere right now, you know.
So I need to not be in Phoenix.
Why would I be in Phoenix?
It's 110 degrees.
So part of this entire journeyhas been you know, how do I do
that, how do I live that life,how do I do the things I want to
do?
For a long time there was a lotof travel focus there and I say
(03:07):
that as if it's not still right.
I'm talking about I'm inMontana today, like I still
travel a lot.
It's a major part of life.
But there was a lot ofinternational travel.
You know I live, I went throughall over, all over Southeast
Asia and Europe and, you know,all through Central and South
America.
I lived in Colombia for fiveyears, which is part of how we
(03:28):
got into this conversation today, and all of those travels.
Generally it's always beenlong-term stuff.
I'm not like a vacation kind ofguy, like it's always been.
I want to go somewhere, I wantto stay there, I want to live
there, I want to see what lifeis like in a different place and
really get an understanding ofwhat's the difference and what's
great and what's beautiful andwhat's the food like.
(03:48):
I'm a big foodie.
You know it's always just howgood is the food?
Where's the best food?
And the answer is Mexico.
It's always Mexico.
My wife likes to fight with meand say it's Peru, but it's
Mexico, yeah, um, yeah.
(04:11):
So you know, in that, in thatrealm, in that, in that kind of
direction, you end up with a lotof like how do you do this
better?
Essentially, like, how do you?
You know, coming back toleadership, like to build these
things requires other people.
I, I wish I could do it allmyself.
I maybe I don't wish I could doit all myself.
Why would I want't wish I coulddo it all myself?
Why would I want to do that?
It requires other people.
You need a team, you need otherpeople that are on board with
you, that are working towardsthe same goal, that are excited
(04:31):
for the thing you're doing andworking on it with you not just
for you, but with you.
And to get there, you have tolearn how to manage other people
and not just manage like didyou get your work done?
Are you hitting your KPIs?
Are the expectations being met?
But manage them.
What makes them excited?
What brings them to the table?
Why are they here?
Why are they going to stay here?
(04:52):
Why are they going to work onthis thing with me?
You know, are they aligned?
Are they in the same mindset?
Do they want the same things?
If so, this works out a lotbetter, right?
If we're all kind of going thesame place, then we all get to
go there together.
So there's all these pieces andI don't know if I'm just off on
a tangent at this point, butthere's all these pieces that
have to come together and youknow, my experience of doing
(05:15):
this has been to learn to do.
That was never a thing.
I was taught.
You know, I went to university,I have degrees, I have, you
know, I have this whole othertechnical side that was part of
this journey of how do you dothese things and where can I go
and make a lot of money,essentially, but these things
weren't a part of that.
(05:35):
How do you really integrate ateam?
How do you be an effectiveleader?
Not just you know, here's atextbook about leadership and
you need to make sure peoplehave the right.
You know this, that and theother, but more like, how do you
actually figure out whatsomeone needs?
How do you understand them at apersonal level in order to find
that and I'm not saying like Iunderstand this a hundred
percent this is a journey, right, this is part of the process.
(05:58):
Like I am in this today, I'mtrying to figure this out and
figuring it out.
I mean, I have 20 years ofbusiness experience plus.
I'm 40 now and I've been doingthis since I was a teenager.
I have a lot of experience anda lot of time in market trying
to help other people achievetheir goals while achieving my
goal.
So, yeah, I'm not sure I feellike I'm just ranting at this
(06:21):
point, but it's somewhere inthere.
There's an answer in there.
Dr. William Attaway (06:25):
Well, no, I love that.
I love what you said about thedistinction between the
education that you got, thedegrees, all the things that
you've learned, and learning howto lead other people, because
that is a distinction that Ithink is important.
Leadership is something that isexecuted and learned as you are
executing.
You can read hundreds of bookson leadership, I have right, but
(06:49):
you learn how to lead by doingit, and I think that's where
there's been no wastedexperience in your life.
Everything that you havedescribed there, and so much
more, has contributed to makeyou into the leader and the
person that you are now.
Chris Brown (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
I think that's true about justabout everything in life.
That's why we I mean educationis very important and it gives
you a solid basis and foundationand you know, you can spread
wide and have more ideas and abetter understanding of this
kind of multimodal sort of youknow, polymath sort of
understanding of the world.
But if you don't go and do itlike I think failure is one of
(07:24):
the world, but if you don't goand do it like I think failure
is one of the most usefulprocesses that there is, and I
think speaking about failure andtalking about failures is, I
don't know.
People are afraid of it, peopleare worried about it, people
think it's like a negative mark,you know.
But it's not.
It's how you learn, it's whereyou, it's where the rubber meets
the road.
Essentially, you got to put itinto practice and when you put
it into practice it's not goingto work and that's when you
(07:45):
learn how it actually works.
Dr. William Attaway (07:53):
Well, I think failure is part of the
journey to success.
I don't know anybody who hasbeen successful at anything
without experiencing failure atcertain points.
But the key there is notover-identifying with it and
saying, well then, I'm a failurebecause I felt, no, no, no, no.
Failure is an event, it's not aperson, right, yeah?
And I think that's important.
Chris Brown (08:09):
Right, exactly, unless you make it unless you
decide it is.
Dr. William Attaway (08:13):
If you choose, if you choose, okay.
But, you get to choose.
Chris Brown (08:18):
Yeah, yeah, you get to choose and you also get to.
You get to choose how you reactto it, as with everything,
right, that is kind of the stoicidea of how do we, how do we
manage ourselves?
Right, like, you get to choosewhat your reaction to that event
is.
If you decide to lean in andtake it personally, as if you
you know.
Yeah, that whole conversationit is a learning experience.
(08:39):
It is a thing to aim for in themath in the process of getting
to success.
In fact, I don't know if weknow what success is without
failure.
You know, it's like you don'tknow that you have good luck
unless you have bad luck.
If all you have is good luck,you have no idea that you have
good luck.
It's the same with success.
Dr. William Attaway (08:58):
If you're immediately successful.
Chris Brown (09:00):
You have no idea.
I mean within reason.
If you're a billionaire atfirst chance, you probably know
you're successful, if that'syour measure of success.
Dr. William Attaway (09:10):
Right yeah, and that's the other piece.
You get to choose what yourmeasure of success is.
You know, for some, maybe it isdollars in the bank, For some,
it's the freedom that youdescribed.
You know the location freedomor the time freedom.
You know the location freedomor the time freedom, you know.
I think we have to understandthat there's not one definition
(09:31):
of success that rules them all,that one size fits all.
You know you get to decide.
What does success look like?
What will success look like?
Where am I aiming, when am I,when do I want to be and how do
I get from here to there?
I think this is what we get todo as leaders.
We get to not just chart thatpath for ourselves, but we get
to help other people andencourage them and empower them
and equip them.
Chris Brown (09:52):
And also give them some perspective that it's
possible sometimes.
Dr. William Attaway (09:57):
You can do this.
Chris Brown (10:00):
You can be this way , you can live like this.
You just have to A you have toknow it's possible, and B you
have to know how to go get itand do the work.
Do the work.
Yeah, you always got to do thework, that's right.
That's step zero.
You got to do the work.
Dr. William Attaway (10:16):
And yet shocking how many times people
think they don't have to.
They can avoid that, you know.
Chris Brown (10:21):
Yeah, but I mean that's another failure.
Step right A hundred percent.
Dr. William Attaway (10:27):
So I would love for you to share a little
bit about WoW remote teams.
You know a lot of the folks whoare listening lead teams, many
of whom members are remote, butsome have not yet taken that
step and there's a struggle inthis idea like well, man, you
know what does it look like andwhy should I consider?
You know, latam when I'mthinking about remote teams
(10:47):
members.
Chris Brown (10:52):
You know what makes that different from, you know,
any other part of the world.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean for us, because our clients are US
companies.
Right, we're a US company.
I'm an American, obviously frommy accent.
For us, you know, it's a reallygood talent pool.
They're very culturally aligned, you know, and they're also
very time zone aligned, so thatmakes a big difference.
We get a lot of people callingus who have talent in other
(11:14):
places in the world and you knowthey're having problems with
the time zone thing where youknow the person that they have
is working at two o'clock in themorning.
Maybe that's great.
I like to say I'm very biased,right, I'm getting the calls of
the people that are unhappy withthat situation.
So that situation works.
It works all day.
There's a lot of very largecompanies and a lot of people
doing, you know, remote workfrom from wherever from the
(11:35):
other side of the planet, butthat time zone alignment is
really impactful and reallyimportant.
Everybody on my team is fromLatin America and it's.
You know, everybody works thesame shift.
Everybody's on during the day.
We all get up.
You know we have our morningmeetings at 8.06 AM and for you
know, it's gotta be, it's gottabe a weird time.
(11:57):
It helps people get online.
I don't know what it is aboutit, but if it's eight, people
don't show up.
It's 8.06.
Everybody's there.
It's a great thing.
Wow, yeah, it works.
Good tip.
Dr. William Attaway (12:03):
That's good .
Chris Brown (12:05):
But you know, everybody's online at 8 AM.
Some people had started an hourearlier, some people start an
hour later.
It just depends on their joband what the overlap looks like.
You know, and everybody'sonline throughout the rest of
the day.
Basically, everybody on my teamis full time, so you get
complete overlap, right.
I'm here, I'm working, I'mready to go, my partner is here,
(12:26):
she's working, she's ready togo, and all of our team is
online at the same time.
Anything happens, everything weneed to know about.
There's no disconnect.
There's no strange oddities,there's no.
This email came in and then itwent out wrong and then there's
a 12-hour gap and now we'rereplying to a client Like I
don't like that.
You know, I don't like thosegaps.
That doesn't mean thateverybody has to be.
(12:48):
You know.
That way you can workdifferently, but for me that's
important and for me it worksreally well and for my clients
it seems to be important andworks really well.
Right, we're online, we'reworking, we're top of mind right
now.
I don't want to think aboutthis at 4 am.
I don't want to wake up at 7and have client issues from
yesterday that didn't getreplied to till 4 am, that are
still, um.
So you know that.
(13:10):
The other thing is just talentpool.
There's a huge talent pool inLatin America and there's a
really strong talent pool, verywell educated, they're very well
experienced.
They have a lot of roots withUS and American companies, right
?
Like you know, all of theseLatin American companies, a
major basis of their economiesis the US economy.
(13:30):
You know, the US economy is thedriver of the economy in this
hemisphere, essentially Not theplanet really, but in this
hemisphere we are the dominantfactor.
Everything that happens aroundus is connected to us and Latin
America.
A lot of them come from, youknow, deep roots of culture that
(13:51):
have been influenced by USmethodology.
Our business methodology issomewhat unique.
It's why we're so dominant,it's why we're good at what we
do, right, we dominate everymarket on this planet,
essentially.
Maybe not you know industrialexports so much anymore, but we
did for a time and then we movedon, which is to say that, you
(14:11):
know, the Latin American systemsare built basically the same
way, the education systems arebuilt basically the same way.
Everything is very correlatedand just you know, there, for
you, it all works really welltogether.
And then you have this otherpiece, which is language and
language.
Right.
All of Latin America speaksSpanish, except for Brazil.
(14:31):
They speak Portuguese, butEnglish is really strong
throughout.
That doesn't mean everybodyspeaks English Now, you can find
a lot of people that don't butEnglish is very strong
throughout.
English is a highly regardedthing throughout them.
And that also comes back toAmerica's the dominant force.
They know that America is thedominant economy.
If you want to succeed, if youreally want to grow, if you want
(14:53):
to come up, you're going to go,try to learn English and it's
going to be part of yourcurriculum, right?
My wife and my partner is fromBogota, colombia.
I met her while I was living inColombia and she speaks perfect
English, speaks great English.
Right, she learned English herentire life.
She had it in school, she hadit in media, she had it in
everything.
Right, she learned English herentire life.
She had it in school, she hadit in media, she had it in
(15:14):
everything.
And then you add another layerto that, which is technology.
Right, we have the internet, wehave this.
Like me and you, where are youright now?
Where are you located?
Dr. William Attaway (15:22):
I'm outside of Washington DC.
Chris Brown (15:24):
Okay, yeah, you're 2000 miles away from me, right,
and we can have an in-person,immediate, well, in-person,
digital, digital, in-person,immediate, face-to-face
conversation.
That's true about everyreaction in the world right now.
Right, all of these people inLatin America.
They're consuming US content.
Of course, we're the biggestcontent creator on the planet.
They're consuming content inEnglish.
(15:46):
They're consuming all of ourstuff all the time.
There's radio, there's music,there's TV, there's movies.
All of this is just beingstreamed and given, right, then
there's no longer adifferentiation.
You don't have to go to themovie theater and watch a movie
and you know, you can watch thesame episode of Friends 7,500
times until you know every wordthat they've said.
And, yeah, like they'relearning, they're just
(16:08):
vicariously, just absorbingEnglish because it's just, we're
such a massive culturalpowerhouse, so they know our
culture.
Their basis is partly ourculture.
They have their own cultures,right, they're all different.
They all work their own way.
This is not to say that Americadominates everything, but it's
to say that we're aligned andthat alignment really brings a
(16:31):
lot of power to US businesses,because you get to go to a
talent pool that's much largerthan you were previously
experiencing and you get to findpeople that are very well
educated, very adept at whatthey do, probably very well
experienced.
There's huge corporations ofevery kind that you could
imagine all throughout LatinAmerica.
There's every industry.
(16:51):
There's every type of justevery type of market, every type
of economy, everything you canimagine.
There's somewhere in LatinAmerica that has that kind of
economy, has that kind ofindustry, has that kind of
production modality and you cantap into those resources.
And especially, coming at it asan American company, you're
going to offer them higher ratesand a better compensation
(17:13):
package.
Then they're going to getoffered in their home country.
So now you have this dual winsituation where you're coming at
people that are veryexperienced, very talented, very
adept, and you're coming with acompensation package that they
couldn't get in their homecountry.
Like that's win-win, becausethat compensation package is
(17:33):
going to be less than you'regoing to pay Americans.
Like it's almost always there'sthere's exceptions at the top
end.
Of course you can, you can getinto it, but yeah, you're,
you're saving money, right,you're going into.
It's an arbitrage play at thatpoint on the on the finance side
of it.
And yeah, you get amazingpeople, amazing talent, amazing
alignment, better prices andit's just, it's a huge win.
(17:58):
It's a huge win in everydirection essentially and you
know, I'm I'm the guy with thecompany like there's a bit of a
sales pitch in there but justlike I used this service before
I came into this company my oldcompany I was I had an ecommerce
company selling medical anddental supplies and we had a CSR
team.
We replaced them with LatinAmerican staff.
(18:18):
We had our development team.
We replaced them with LatinAmerican staff and it was
fantastic.
We saved money.
The KPIs got better.
You know like we, we upscaledour operation for less money
doing it through Latin America.
Part of that was having a goodresource.
You know, I I was I was usingmy partner as the resource to
(18:40):
start finding those people.
She's very good, she's veryadept.
She was an executive in aneducation company in Columbia
before moving to the U S, soshe's very well rooted and has
very good connections andnetwork and, of course, very
smart Um.
But using that, using thatnetwork, bringing that in, using
(19:01):
that talent pool, justcompletely changed the base
operation of that company.
By the time I left that company, the only people left in the US
were the people that wereneeded to be there, like the
forklift operator and the officemanager.
Wow, everybody else, everybodythat could be remote, was from
Latin America.
And again, that was also youknow again, going back to the
way I've structured my life andmy businesses that one was also
(19:24):
structured to be as remote aspossible.
Now there was a warehouse,there was physical inventory.
It was a large operation butthe majority of the positions
were built in a way that nobodyhad to go to that office.
They have the optionality.
If you really wanted to go toMesa, arizona, and go to a
warehouse, have fun.
There's a desk, you can use it.
I don't know why you're goingto, but have fun, you know.
(19:45):
But once we saw the LatinAmerican option, it just took
over.
You know the hiring process ofthe organization because it was
just better.
I mean, my, my partner and herrecruiting team were far better
at finding good people than wewere in the in our own company,
(20:05):
because we didn't have adedicated recruiting team.
Why would we?
We're an e-commerce with awarehouse.
You know we need we need 15people at any given time.
So I'm not, I don't want tohire a recruiter as well.
So you're kind of doing ityourself, right?
You have your operationsofficer kind of acting as
recruiter and that works well.
They know what you need.
They're probably good atfinding stuff, but they're never
(20:26):
as good as a dedicatedrecruiting team right, they're
not as good as somebody whosejob it is to interview people
and who enjoys interviewingpeople.
You know it makes a difference.
It makes a huge difference.
Dr. William Attaway (20:39):
It really does.
Yeah, you know a couple ofthings you keyed into there that
I want to follow up on.
One was the cost thing Mostpeople think about.
You know sourcing talentoffshore as a cost being the
primary reason you would do that.
One of the things you talkedabout was how it's not just a
matter of a benefit for thebusinesses in the US to think
(21:02):
offshore talent.
It's not just for a costbenefit for you, it's also for
them.
You know you're actually givingthem an opportunity at a wage
and a benefit package that theycould not achieve without that.
I think that's important.
One of the key themes that Italk about frequently when it
comes to leadership is seeingthe people that you lead not
(21:25):
just as cogs in a machine, butas actual 3D human beings, right
, and people that have hopes anddreams of their own.
It sounds like and feel free tocorrect me if I'm off, but it
sounds like that is how you viewthis entire thing, as you're
trying to find a winningsituation for everybody involved
the employer and the employee.
(21:47):
You know the team lead and theteam member, so that everybody
wins.
Is that accurate?
Chris Brown (21:54):
Oh, that's 100%.
The underlying model, that'swhat underpins this business
working, is that the people youhire have to be happy.
Essentially, they have to befulfilled, they have to be well
compensated, they have to begetting what they want out of
life and out of your position inorder to be a long-term, stable
(22:17):
asset to your company.
And yeah, the only way you getthere is for them to be well
compensated, be well maintained,be well cared for.
And in order for that to happen, you have to pay a good salary,
pay a good wage, have goodbenefits.
You know you have to take careof them, make sure that they
know what their time off is andare able to take it and aren't
(22:37):
over pressured and aren'toverworked.
And yeah, I mean that's part ofpart of it is client, client
intake really, because you knowfinding candidates, finding good
people, making sure they'rewell-compensated.
It's very important.
Again, it's an underpinning ofour business.
It's part of the point of theoperation is, you know, bringing
(23:00):
better opportunities to peoplein Latin America.
That's kind of part of how thisstarted.
It also started, as you know,we can find it for Americans and
there's a business model.
But clients, you know checkingclients, intaking clients,
seeing if a client is a good fitis part of that motion, and
that is that question of like.
You know, what is your, what isyour business's policy, what is
(23:23):
your outlook on how this works?
Are you treating this person asa disposable contractor?
If so, I'm not the right guyfor you.
I don't really want yourbusiness.
I mean, there's a lot of them.
You know there's plenty ofbusiness out there for you.
You can go find those people,but I don't want to be involved
in that situation.
So part of it is, you know,assessing the clients that are
coming in and making sure thatyou know, is your budget for
(23:46):
this position reasonable?
And I get a lot of client callsthat it's not a reasonable
budget for the position, andthat's might just be my
positioning in the market.
Right, we're a little bit moremid level at this point, not at
the, you know, not entry orbottom level.
So a little bit of that ispositioning, but also a little
bit of that is just thatexpectation that you're kind of
(24:06):
alluding to, which is you knowwe're coming at this to save
money, yeah, okay, well, youknow you can try to hire
somebody at $7 an hour from thePhilippines or something, but at
the end of the day, you'regoing to get what you pay for.
You're going to save money bygoing to Latin America.
You're going to save money bygoing to the Philippines, that
(24:26):
doesn't mean it's going to bethe cheapest thing you've ever
seen.
Right, you get what you pay for, that's well said.
Dr. William Attaway (24:35):
Let's talk about you for a minute.
In your journey, as youdescribed, kind of where you've
been, what you've been through,what you've led, you know what
you have to do today, for WOWrequires more of you than it did
five years ago, and five yearsfrom now, wow is going to
require even more.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
(24:59):
business, your clients, yourteams are going to need you to
have in the days ahead?
Chris Brown (25:06):
I mean, the answer is a little bit cliche, which is
this like lifelong learningthing which you know, I think
everybody kind of leans into andI think everybody does, but
really it's, it's thefundamental basis of how do you
continue, how do you grow?
You know, growing as as aleader, growing as the business
leader, growing, as you know,the operational head, is just
(25:27):
another piece of everything elsewe have to grow at in life.
Every day is is new, every dayis a new challenge.
Every day there's anotherlittle piece that you have to
learn and figure out and I thinkthat's just this.
You know, it's this continuedcuriosity for me, which is just
always looking for somethinginteresting, something
interesting that helps along theway.
(25:49):
You know, it's not necessarilyjust blind, shotgun approach to
interesting things, which isbasically like reels at this
point, you know.
But more, more kind of focusedinterest is, if you're, for me.
I don't know if this is alwaystrue, but for me, when something
, when a topic is top of mind,when something's kind of
bothering me, when something'sout there like I just this, this
(26:11):
is eating at me, it could bebetter, right, something in this
universe kind of brings theright information my way and
that's not just like I sit thereand it comes at me, but I'm out
there searching, I'm looking,I'm reading different things and
then you know, when you havesomething top of mind that's an
issue, something that's notnecessarily connected, will
click and they'll be like, oh,but this topic's out there.
(26:33):
I didn't realize that topic wasout there.
And then you go look at it andthink about it and then you read
more on it and then you realize, oh, that really does correlate
, just not in the way I expectedit to right.
There's this kind of tangentialcorrelation to basically
everything that you can go findnew avenues in.
And as you find those newavenues, those new methodologies
, those new, just interestingtopics, they come back and they
(26:56):
wrap around.
It's like this thing I forgetthe name of it there's this
thing where, like, if you learna new word, that word's going to
pop up in the world around you,right, like you didn't realize
you were hearing it all the timeand now you know what it means
and suddenly you see the wordeverywhere.
You know there's that, but itkind of permeates everything
around us, like for me anyways,maybe that's not true for you
(27:17):
know, but in my experience, whenI see a new topic, or when I
see a new avenue or something,suddenly that kind of thing, it
just starts clicking into placewith everything else.
And a lot of times you know theway our mind works, or like my
mind works is that that clickingwill really help with that
problem solving of the thingyou're working on.
It's not going to solve theproblem, right, but it's going
(27:38):
to give you that next littlepiece, and that next little
piece is going to give you thatnext step, and that next step is
going to lead to that actionpoint.
And that action point is eithergoing to lead to failure, and
you're going to learn from it,or it's going to lead to success
.
And now you have the toolkitand then you can continue and
then it's just, you know, it'sthe the ooda loop kind of
situation, right, you'recontinually looking, you're
(27:58):
continually orienting, you'recontinually deciding and then
you're acting, and then then youlearn, because then you go back
to the first step to see ifthat action worked.
If it didn't work, which result?
Was it right?
This continual, ongoing cycleof am I doing the right thing?
Is this on?
Am I?
There's this idea from the, theCharles Munger almanac book,
(28:19):
which is avoiding stupidity,right, which is like, is this
thing stupid?
Is is what is the badconsequence of this?
Like how can I avoid stupidity?
In these motions, you know, andthose things all kind of work
together.
They coalesce into a workingoperational reality around you.
Dr. William Attaway (28:38):
I love that You've mentioned at least one
already.
I'm curious is there a bookthat you would recommend to the
leaders who are listening?
That's made a really bigdifference in your journey.
Chris Brown (28:49):
Well, that one, of course, I mean Portia Early's
Almanac is probably one of myfavorite books.
You know, it's just it's alittle bit different, right,
like there's always theseanswers of you know, atomic
Habits is an amazing book andAtomic Habits he has a
newsletter on Thursdays theemail newsletter I love it.
I love it.
It's the only newsletter that'sallowed past my unsubscribe
(29:10):
filter.
It's the only one I don't letno other newsletter gets passed,
that one I'll read everyThursday.
It's fantastic, I love it, it'sso valuable.
But Poor Charlie's Almanac isjust, it's a different thing.
It's this idea of multimodalthinking right, it's this
lattice work of thoughtprocessing and it comes back to
that thing I was talking about amoment ago, which is like ideas
(29:32):
click when you find them indifferent places.
But it has to be this networkof ideas, it has to be this
entire mesh of things that weunderstand and this mental model
that we have of the world,based on that mesh of ideas and
this information.
So you bring all these thingstogether from all these
different places and suddenlythey connect in ways you didn't
understand and it's like this uh, you know, his whole point is
(29:54):
this, this basal understandingof kind of just multiple,
multiple places.
So, like you have decentunderstanding of biology and
physics and you know psychologyand business and and as you go
moving through the world, eachof those things will kind of
give you interaction or give you, you know, input and it's you
know, especially the leadingteams.
Like you could lead all in onpsychology, but then you have
(30:17):
too much psychology.
Or you lead all in on you knowjust business, but then you just
have business.
You need.
You need a well-roundedapproach to all these things in
order to see the path ahead andget a better idea of what the
problem actually is and anddefine the problem so that you
can attack it.
Hmm.
Dr. William Attaway (30:35):
Solid.
Last question, and I ask thisone to everybody If I could, if
I had the ability to snap myfingers right now and solve one
problem in your business, whatwould you want that problem to
be?
Oh, one.
Chris Brown (30:54):
Um, I think communication is always this
sort of transient problem thatwe have.
It's not necessarily like yeah,if you could solve
communication in a way that'snot just how do we communicate,
because there's a billion waysto communicate, but are you
doing it effectively?
Are you doing it correctly?
Is the recipient understandingwhat the sender I'm not sure
(31:18):
what the other word there is issaying, right, is it being?
Is it being?
Is it coming across in the waythat it needs to come across?
Because it, it goes sidewaysall the time, especially as you
get, as you get further awayfrom in-person spoken
conversation, it gets harder andharder, right?
So you go, you know in spokenconversation, you still have
disagreements, you still havemisunderstandings.
(31:39):
I constantly, me and my wife,will have I'll say something and
she'll take it a different way,or she'll say something and
I'll take it a different way.
And then you have to iterate onthis process to find what was
the correct understanding there,what, what did you mean to say?
How did you say it and what wasI meant to think from that?
You know, and that's in person.
So you get to, you know, videochats on a call here, or you get
(32:01):
to just voice chat and then youget down to email and then you
get down to text messages andthen you get down to you know,
etc.
Etc.
Etc.
You get further and further awayfrom a good, effective,
empathetic approach to goodcommunication, effective
communication.
And you know, I don't, I don'thave an answer to that.
(32:21):
We're always working on that.
I'm always personally workingon that.
You know, how do I?
How do I get this across?
How do I make sure that, when Iget this across, the other
person gets what I'm trying tosay?
And how do I figure out how to,you know, manage what I'm
saying so that it comes acrossas clearly, as effectively and
as as impactfully, but asempathetically as possible?
And so, yeah, I think somewherein that world would be awesome.
(32:42):
There's a million otherproblems to solve, but I think
that would be if you could snapyour fingers and solve it.
Dr. William Attaway (32:47):
That would be amazing, right, I wish I
could.
That would be amazing.
You know, I ask that questionbecause I think it's so easy to
look at somebody like you fromthe outside and say, oh man,
chris, chris's journey is justup into the right.
He's never struggled withanything.
He never really has any realproblems.
you know, like I have, you knowand I think it's good for
(33:08):
everyone listening to thisepisode to understand that, no
matter where you are on theentrepreneurial journey, no
matter what level of successyou've achieved, there are
always things you would love tosolve.
There are always problems thatare still staring at you.
That you're trying to wrestleto the ground, and I think
that's very helpful andencouraging.
Chris Brown (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I agree, you know, I
would.
Just I would add that it'snever always up, and to the
right, it's always rocky.
I agree, that was just theright, it's always rocky.
I agree.
That was just one example.
There's endless examples.
Dr. William Attaway (33:41):
Chris, this has been such a great
conversation and I'm so gratefulfor your transparency and your
generosity in sharing so freelyfrom your journey and what
you've learned so far.
I know our listeners are goingto want to stay connected to you
and continue to learn from youand more about what you're doing
at WoW.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Chris Brown (34:01):
Generally the website wowremoteteamscom,
Google us or just ask ChatGPTfor good Latin American staffing
companies.
It would generally pop up.
The other way, of course, isLinkedIn, but my name is Chris
Brown, so kind of good luck.
But Chris Brown.
Wow is LinkedIn, but my name isChris Brown, so kind of good
luck.
But Chris Brown, wow, wow,teams, something like that.
You'll find me and yeah, thoseare really the best routes.
Dr. William Attaway (34:24):
We will have those links in the show
notes, including to your actualLinkedIn profile.
Chris Brown (34:28):
Yeah, please do.
Dr. William Attaway (34:31):
Chris, thank you so much for your time
today.
Chris Brown (34:33):
Yeah, thank you for having me, william, it's been a
pleasure.
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