Michael Melen: Talent Pool, Growth Opportunity | Work 20XX Ep54

Mike Melen took a college side hustle, and built it into a growing global digital marketing agency. After starting full remote, Mike opened an office in Bergen County, New Jersey. Covid closed the office, and SmartSites is back to being fully remote to stay.

Remote hiring opened up the available talent pool beyond his Bergen County, New Jersey. Suddenly, Mike could hire people with the special skills needed, regardless of where they plugged in their laptop. 

Mike learned early on that the best people want opportunities to grow, so he set an annual goal of 30% growth. He hired younger, less experienced people and invested in them to grow and advance along with the companies. Fourteen years later, SmartSites has grown to 400 people.

Please join me in welcoming Mike Melen to the Work 20XX podcast.

Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.

Michael Melen: Talent Pool, Growth Opportunity | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep54 from Running Remote 2025 Austin 

#Remote #Digital #Distributed #Async #Work #FoW #Workplace #Talent #Career #BergenCounty #DigitalMarketing #DistributedTeams #Global #HiringStrategy #Leadership #Scaling #RemoteTeams #SmartSites #StartupJourney #TalentPool #TeamGrowth #WorkFromAnywhere #SmartSites #RunningRemote #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX

 

YouTube - Click Here 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MosbOY0uFUI&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt 

Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here 

https://www.work20xx.com/episode/michael-melen-talent-pool-growth-opportunity-work-20xx-ep54

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You guys good? Okay, cool.

(00:01):
All rightso then I’ll
I'll count us down
and then we will just go.
In three, two, one.
Hey, welcome back everybody.Jeff Frick here
coming to you not from the home studio.
Looks a little bitdifferent.
I'm actually in Austinat Running Remote.
So Work 20XX on the roadwith my good friends
at Running Remote.
So we're heretalking to the experts.
And what's interestingabout remote work is

(00:23):
was said once, long,long ago by a guy
much smarter than me,Darren Murph.
Remote forces companiesto be good at things
that all companies are[should be] good at.
So whether you'refully remote
whether you'redistributed, hybrid
or everybodyin the office
these are all lessons in terms of knowledge management
and communicationand engagement
that we can allbenefit from.
So we're excitedto have our next guest.

(00:44):
He is Mike Melen
and he is a co-founder with his brother
of SmartSites.
Mike, greatto see you.
Great to be here.Thank you so much.
Absolutely.
So for peoplenot familiar
give them quick 101on SmartSites.
So we're a digitalmarketing agency.
We do SEO, pay per click,email marketing
social mediaand websites.
I started myselfjust in the SEO piece

(01:04):
and then while we reallybranched out from there
seeing thata company
small businessthat we serve
they don't needjust SEO.
They needthe full service.
And we really became the
you knowit's a
as long as smallbusinesses
need digital marketing
you know, we'll be ableto provide it for them.
Okay, so you're giving a session
in a little bit here at the show called

(01:25):
‘How I Scaled My Business 400x using Remote’
400x.
First off, congratson the great growth.
You knowyou've talked
about gettingready for this.
You're a New Jerseybased company
and you used tohire all locally
and that wasyour thing.
What happened that madeyou suddenly decide
you need to go outsideof New Jersey?
Well
First off, I'll say that

(01:46):
the credit of that titleis not to me, that
I don't know who made that title,
but it's a reallygood title.
But I was looking at it also and I’m like
400x to me, like a dollar to $400, so
But in this case it was
one employee to 400 employees
Okay
And that’s where they got the 400x.
Okay.
I don't take credit
but it is a good title
and that is thetitle of the session.
You know, there's a wholenother group of people
that write the headlinesthan write the stories.

(02:06):
[Jeff] at newspapers.[Mike] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s good. To methat's pretty good.
And it was actuallyintroduced to me.
They said, hey, do youhave the presentation ready?
I'm like, well,what's the title?
I'm like, that's areally good title.
I'll work on it.
And actuallythe
the way it started,I actually I started remote
and I started
I started what eventuallybecame SmatSites
I actually startedin college and
first I did things myself.

(02:27):
And I started thislike in the summer.
So, it was almost like for, like, some side money,
you know, to be ableto go back to college
and actuallyhave some, you know
[Mike] money to pay for things[Jeff] You can say beer money.
We know it was beer money.
Yeah, exactly.
It was beer money.
But I wasnot 21.
But still it wasbeer money.
Okay.
And eventually when I went back
to universityI had to have
a team to be ableto still run it.

(02:48):
Right, so I went overseas.
Not to saythat like
it was intentionaloverseas
but I went online
and there were message boardsback then and forums
and I foundpeople to do what
what I didin the summer.
So to be able to run it right.
And then when it came time to graduate
I kept thosesame people.
But then I opened upan office and I.
Kind of the way I saw it is
I was aproject manager

(03:09):
you know so I was theone managing clients
managing relationshipssales.
And then the writers would write
and the link builderswould build links.
And I wasthe person to like
you knowmanage it all.
And my idea was
hey, I'll justreplicate myself.
And those are the people
who are going to be in the office.
And that was the modeluntil Covid came along.
And then we closed it so.
I started off remote

(03:29):
you know, and then I
it was a piece in the office,the US based team.
And now againwe're fully remote, so.
Okay
That wasmy journey.
So what does remote doin terms of opening up
the talent pool for you?
That's got to bea completely different
thing than just recruiting
in your local Geo.
Yeah, well, I speak two things on that.
First off
I start off managing remote.
So when we had the office

(03:50):
it was just a whole newset of challenges for me
things I would never think of.
All of a sudden there'slike office drama.
There's debateson like
the temperatureof the office
you know, someone goestakes lunch
five minutes later thansomeone else and they go
and they go, well, are we allowed to take lunch
for an hour and five minutes now, like
Where doesit end Mike?
and I was just likeoh my God like
it was so hard for meto manage that
because I camefrom just like

(04:11):
managing on KPIs like
here’s what youhave to do.
[Jeff] Right
And, you know,you just get it done.
I don't care when you do it
you know,you just do it.
And then when Iopened up an office
it was just like so manydistractions, right.
So, you know
that was one challengewith the office
which again I'm happy to go fully remote
now be able tomore focus on the KPIs.

(04:31):
Secondly, I headquartered it
quite selfishlyyou know
next to myhometown, right.
So I didn't look at a map and say, hey,
what's good forthis business?
I looked at a map
a small map and I said,what's close to home?
[Jeff] Right, right.
Which was Bergen County,New Jersey.
And it's not thecheapest place to live.
Right.
And it's, well it’snext to city.
No one from New York City

(04:53):
would commute toBergen County to work.
It worksthe other way.
So, you know, when I would look for something
like a Google ad specialist
you know, or even more niche
Meta ads,Pinterest ads,
you know, in BergenCounty, New Jersey,
very small talent pool.
Right, right.
All of a sudden
again,Covid hit
and we look forthe same job now
all through the United States.

(05:14):
There's a lot morequalified people.
So how many of your remote folks
are U.S. basedversus international?
So wekeep a
still a very similar modelto what I started with was
everyone U.S. basedis client facing.
So sales,project managers,
and then the writers,the developers
the designers,they're overseas.
So we have around100 people in the US

(05:35):
and about 300 overseas.
Okay.
So there’s always a tricky question that comes up is pay.
Do you pay by geo,or do you pay by skill?
By skill butthat's
it's funny the way I looked at it
and I'm going totalk about
a little bit about ittomorrow.
You know, when I firstwent out to look for
you know, this talentright.
And I would see, like,oh, you know,

(05:57):
this person from Australia
is wanting the same rate
as this personfrom Indonesia.
And I would look at thisand go like
okay, maybe I'll take theperson from Australia right.
And then I wouldrealize like
Yeah, that's not a living wagefor the person in Australia
So all of a sudden like,you know,
my mindset flippedand said, hey,
I want to look at people
from really affordable countries

(06:19):
because that dollar is going to go a lot farther for them
So we don't do,you know,
we don't look at geoto for pay
Yeah, we don'tlook at geo at all.
It's funny
[Jeff] cause it’s wide, right[Mike] I was reading Facebook
It's a hugerange or
is it collapsing?What do you see?
Well, I'll saythis also.
So in Meta
I was readingabout Meta does

(06:39):
which I thoughtwas funny.
So Meta pays you
you know, in the U.Sbased on where you live.
So I have a buddy who worksfor Meta, works for Facebook
and although he movedaway from New York City
he still tells Meta helives in New York City.
And he goes, If Meta finds outthat I actually moved upstate
all of a sudden they're goingto pay me 20% less.
Right, so
Yeah we don't do that.

(06:59):
That's crazy.
So one of the things you'vealso talked about a lot
is hiring young
and giving opportunitiesto people
to grow withthe company
and that's really one of the benefits
of being in ahigh growth business.
I wonder if you can share
a little bit moreabout that philosophy
and how that's worked out for you?
YeahI mean
it's workedfor us, right?
It's hard for me to say like, hey,
it'll workfor all cases.

(07:21):
But for usit was always like
you knowyeah
maybe we'd havelike the luxury to
like hire especiallywhen we started
like really experienced people.
Right, so like
all we coulddo is hire
kind of inexperienceand work with that.
And it's workedfor us.
And anotherthing
I'll speak about a littlebit tomorrow, too, it's
we set out this goalreally early on
to grow30% per year.

(07:42):
And I'll say it was almost like accidental.
When I envisionedthe company
I envisioned like meand my best buds
like make a company.
right, like somethingsmall like
you know, me and my best
ten best friends
and we're going to dosomething cool together.
And that's whatit is. Right.
And I was at that pointreally early on,
but then I realized
all the best peoplethey wanted growth.
Right, so there'sthis like

(08:03):
Mike, what's like the growth plan?
I'm like, what growth plan?
Like, I'm cool with this.
Aren't you?
And they're like,no, like Mike,
I don't wannabe like
your only sales person forever.
And I was like
Well whythe heck not?
[Mike] like you’re awesome[Jeff] Right, right.
Like do this forever.
They're likeno Mike
I actually wantto grow a team.
And again, the bestpeople, they wanted that.
And I was like
reluctantlyI was like alright
well how about this?
Like, nothingtoo crazy.

(08:23):
Every year we're gonnagrow 30%, right?
And that waythe best people
they could all of a sudden
look at their organization say, hey
look at their organization say, hey
if I kick ass, like,in three years,
I could actuallybe a manager.
[Jeff] Right, right.
Yeah, and that wasthe goal we set up.
So, yeah, it wasn't like we went from one
100 to 400 overnight.
It wasn't even like
here's the six monthsit happened.
It was actually veryorganically every year,

(08:43):
maybe likeplus or minus 5%,
maybe Covid wasa little slower
But, for themost part
each year we grew around 30% and
you know you multiplythat out for 14 years
and we’re at 400 some odd people.
That's great.
Well, MikeI appreciate the
I appreciatethe story.
Good luck with yourpanel tomorrow.
I'm sure it'll be fun.
And thanks for sharing the update.
Thank you so much.I appreciate it.

(09:03):
All right.
He's Mike I'm Jeff
you're watching Work 20XX
coming to you from Running Remote in Austin.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listeningon the podcasts.
Catch you next time.
Take care.
All right.
We are out.[applause]
Thank you.[applause]
Thank you. Sir.[applause]
Hey, Jeff Frick Here
big shout out to the podcast audience.
Thanks for listening in.
You can get show notes and transcripts at Work20XX.com

(09:27):
And that also has links to the videos as well.
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Thanks for listening.Take care. Bye bye.