TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to BizFilings Expert Insights.
Greg Corombos: I'm Greg Corombos. Our guest in this edition of Expert Insights is Ivana Taylor. She is the Publisher of DIYmarketers.com, which focuses on doing marketing well on a small budget. We spoke with her just a few weeks ago to get her insights on marketing strategies during a time of inflation. Today, we'll be speaking with Ivana about another critical topic these days: remote employees and remote teams, and specifically how to hire and manage those remote teams.
As with all other topics, you can find her writings on this subject at DIYmarketers.com. And Ivana, thanks so much for being with us.
Ivana Taylor: Super excited to be here.
GC: Well, remote teams is a concept that some businesses had been doing long before the pandemic, some scrambled to adopt the practice during the pandemic because they had to, others are still trying to figure it out. So as we begin our discussion here on best practices for hiring and managing remote employees and remote teams, just how big of a surge are we seeing this from businesses right now?
IT: You know, it's been exploding. I've been working with a virtual team for over 20 years now. And I've seen a lot of people are still not where you think they would be. They are still not where you think they would be. A lot of small businesses, and even micro-businesses, like people with fewer than five employees—solopreneurs—most of us are solopreneurs, right? They think that they have to hire someone, it's like, do I hire someone? Or do I do it myself? Well, you can have both. And a virtual team will give you that. Everyone's virtual these days. And it's increased, but here's the thing: they don't know how to hire a virtual team, they don't know what to look for. So that's what we're going to talk about today.
GC: Exactly. And one of the things you talk about right away in this column, again, DIYmarketers.com is to understand the position really, really well before you ever even think about actually filling it. In other words, do the job yourself, and add all the detail that needs to be done, so you know exactly what the person coming in is going to need to do. Is that happening on a widespread basis? And just walk us through what that looks like in reality, in preparing yourself to understand the position to know who to hire.
IT: Exactly, because that advice covers about 80% of things, right? However, let's say, for example, I'm not a web designer, so I don't know what it takes to design a website. So we're going to talk about that, like what happens when you don't know how to do this thing, right?
Okay. So the number one thing is if you've read the EMyth, one of the things that happens in the EMyth, and this is advice I give all the time, right, the first thing you want to do is you want to make a list of all the things that you do. For example, I create a lot of content. So I do a lot of research, I do a lot of writing, I do all these different things, right? They're all these little tasks that have to be done. Now, the next thing that you want to do, and this is actually all in the EMyth book is - Michael Gerber recommends now go through the tasks that only you can do and identify what those are like, for example, only I can do this particular interview with you today, right? So that's something that only I can do. Now, let's say, for example, I also produce a Twitter chat. And that is done by a virtual team, right? Because what are all the steps that go into a Twitter chat? So, what I did is I said well, what's the first thing we do we come up with a topic, then we come up with questions, then we have a guest, we schedule things, you know, you go through this entire thing, then you answer the questions, blah, blah, blah, right? There are all these little steps. I have set it up, I have a virtual team member. And all she does is the Twitter chat. So, I meet with my social media manager, we come up with the content and the questions, we do our part and we bounce it over to her. She does all the scheduling and she takes care of all of that. So, however, to go to what you were talking about. We did all of that first. So if a task is really simple, it's if it's a policy or procedure that you have in your business, you definitely want to know how that's supposed to be done and why it's done the way it's done because that is your brand. That is how you deliver exactly what's supposed to be delivered.
And once you know exactly what you do and how you do it, and why you do it the way you do it, I recommend that you actually record that with like you can use Loom or like some type of screen casting thing that takes a picture of you doing something on the screen, for example. Once you've done all that, now you will have a very clear idea of what you need done. And that's going to help you. Also, have it broken up into smaller tasks. And my recommendation is when you are looking at people to hire a virtual team, give them a small project. Give them something small, it's got a beginning, it's got an end. It could be a little research thing. It could be like a little social media scheduling thing. Something that has a beginning and an end. And then you can see how that works for you. Right.
So, I am a big advocate for virtual teams. Because you know why, Greg? Let me tell you. If you're a solopreneur, it opens up the opportunities for you to take on new business. Because let's say I'm not an expert in web developing, but I have someone on my virtual team that is a web developer, so I can say yes to that. You see what I mean?
GC: Yes.
IT: So a virtual team allows you to expand your company. And not only that, but it also allows you to price more profitably. Because what you're going to do instead of just pricing your services in this case, for just you're doing it, which guaranteed you're going to underprice it. If you have a virtual team, if you're out, bidding, you know what I mean, going out and asking for proposals, how much would it cost for you to do this? How much would it cost for you to do this? Now, what you've got is not only a potential partner in helping you deliver these products or services, but you'll be pricing more profitably because you'll be including all of that value.
GC: Exactly. And as you just explained from your own work situation, defining the skillsets necessary for the people on this virtual team is very important. Especially once you throw it out there on these websites, and you recommend some of those that help you kind of filter through the different applicants. But whether someone posts on the sites that you recommend or some other site, what type of tools or filters should they definitely be incorporating to make sure that they're getting the people who are actually qualified for this job and they don't have to sift through a pile of resumes?
IT: Exactly right. And this brings us a little bit to what I didn't talk about a whole lot is: What if you don't know anything about the thing that you need done? Right? Like I'm not a web developer, I'm not an SEO expert. Well, guess what? You do need to learn something about those elements, right? Reach out to your community, make sure that you talk to people and, you know, when I say do your research, do your research about what types of issues am I having with my website? I actually lived through this and it's very, very difficult. I talked, if I didn't talk to 50 SEO people, I didn't talk to a single one. Because always remember the person that you're looking to hire, they're going to want to please you, they're going to tell you that they can do everything. What you want to do is you want to know that if you use a particular type of tool, if you're using a particular type of email software, any type of software or tool that you're using, you want to mention that and you want to see that in that person's profile. Right? You want to see that they know how to work with this tool. That should tell you something. And if you are interviewing, so to speak, and I mean talking to people who are experts in that thing that you know nothing about – whether it's web development, SEO, Facebook advertising, or whatever it might be right– that you have at least some understanding about what should be the average budget for this type of thing? Because you want to know, am I getting overbilled? Am I getting underbilled? You want to know the right questions to ask. And quite frankly, your network is going to be your best place for that. Don't just go out looking to hire people. Definitely do your research, talk to people in your network, make sure you do your own research online. Because I promise you, if you just go out there, I can tell you this because I have done it, you will spend too much and not get what you paid for.
GC: Exactly. Doing your research, understanding the position that you're hiring for. In the end, though, there may need to be something that cannot be defined with data and information. It's the gut instinct, if you're down to those last couple of candidates for the job, how does your gut instinct lead you to the right person?
IT: And you know, Greg, it really is a gut instinct. And even though my brand—when you read the blog and you read the site, you'll see it's very, very pragmatic—but I actually opened myself up to a little bit of that woo woo. So, most of the platforms, my favorite platform is Upwork. I've had the best results through Upwork. They handle all the payments, there's so much possibility and they have decent people. So, one of the things that I do is that I will get into a conversation with them. You can do text and messaging on UpWork. And you can be in a text conversation with them. And I actually like to do that because that's how I like to communicate. So that's something you want to be clear about: how do you like to communicate with people? Do you prefer phone? Do you need a local person? Does it matter, right? Typically, I do not send anything that's a writing assignment that needs to be done in English. And there are things I just do not send very far away. Right? There are people that are terrific. I have a Filipino team, I've worked with people from India, I've worked with people from all over the world, some things are done in the United States alone, right? So, you'd want to be able to engage with them. You want to understand what your relationship with time is. I'm going to tell you, people want to please and they're going to say they're going to get something to you faster. You want to test them out and see, and you want to communicate with them. How do I like to work? What are my expectations about time? What are my expectations about how we communicate? You see what I mean? Those types of things are really important.
And then if you've done all of those things, your gut is going to tell you. And remember, I haven't picked a lot of bad folks. But I have picked some folks that just simply didn't work out. And that's the other reason why I love virtual teams, you don't have all this stuff with this employee and stuff. You're working with another business owner, they're professional in their field. If it doesn't work out, they're totally okay with it.
GC: Let's talk quickly about managing virtual teams in our last couple of minutes here. First of all, what expectations do you like to set right away for how you will manage the remote employee? And should that relationship be set up with a lot of give and take? Or since you're the manager, should you just kind of set it up and let them know what to expect?
IT: In this article I actually go through my favorite team performance model and it puts the onus basically, and this is how I look at it, if you are the person who is hiring someone, then the onus is on you to do all the communicating. And when I say that, what I mean is you need to know exactly what your expectations are, how you want to be communicated with, how you work best, right? Like I work best by having stuff done early. If stuff isn't done early, I like have a little freakout. And so I tell my people this. You want to tell them: when is the deadline? How do I deal with deadlines? And you want to make sure that they are following that. Yes, in the beginning, there's going to be a few trip ups here and there. But overall, if you spend the time upfront that, as soon as something doesn't go the way you expected it, that you have that conversation right away: Hey, you said you were going to have this to me Wednesday at 3pm but you didn't tell me it was going to be late and it didn't show up till Thursday, or I had to call you about it. I can't work like that. I need you to tell me X. I needed to go like this. You see what I mean, right?
And then if you're doing that, and you're doing that consistently, it typically I have found that it typically takes about two or three iterations. That might be in a week, in a month, like whatever your real time cycle is. It takes about two or three iterations for people to kind of get with the flow. But you do need to know, if they didn't deliver, were you not clear? And that's why I say the onus is on you to communicate. And of course, if you are a control freak, I am somewhat of a control freak. I'm not a complete control freak. If you're going to give a design project to someone and let them do it, don't get all like nitpicky about it, and say, well, I wish this thing were green. And this were blue or whatever, you know what I mean? It's like, is a decent looking? Does it match your brand? Or did they just like screw it up completely? Right? If they screwed it up completely, give them another chance and then just move on to the next person. I don't know if that's helpful. But that's how I do it.
GC: It is. It's very helpful, because you know, you're constantly dealing with different people and different work methods. And if you're the one running the show, then you need to be the one to set the expectations. We've talked about the benefits of virtual teams bringing in new business and people with different expertise and so forth. Real quickly, let's talk about what is a sign of a virtual team that's not going well or that brings disadvantages and that's communication that can sometimes be misinterpreted when you're not together as opposed to face to face and how to work through those situations. And then also just what signs are there that this team's not fixable, and then what to do about it.
IT: Yeah, right. And this is why I just so highly recommend that folks look up this thing. It's called the Drexler Sibbet model. It's a team model that I have used. I learned it in grad school, and I've used it every day ever since. What's great about it is that you don't have to have a whole team training on it for everybody, you need to know it. Right? If you know it, I call it a self-healing model. And that in and of itself is going to help you when things come up, because, honestly, the onus is on you.
For example, one of the things that can happen with teams, especially a virtual team is different people like to use different tools. Hello! If somebody's sending you emails, and you're not reading emails, or if they're using Slack, and you don't ever have your Slack open, or they can't reach you, or whatever, things are going to go bad. Pick a tool, all agree that you're going to use it and stick to it, right? So the onus is on you to choose that if you are the person that's hiring.
Another one that happens is assigning similar tasks to different people. That is not cool, right? Because now you're going to get, you're just like paying twice for something. Don't do that. That doesn't work. So again, the onus is on you. And that's why what we talked a little bit earlier about laying out those tasks, what needs to be done, and what kind of skills you need to have to do that, right? That can save you money, because any kind of data that needs to be pulled, analyzed, something like that, I can send that to India, I can send that to the Philippines or Pakistan or whatever. They're just looking at data. Whereas if something needs to be designed, written, or done a certain way on social media, I want that with me. You see what I mean?
GC: Absolutely.
IT: Those are things that can go wrong. Another thing that can go wrong, and this is a trap, any small business that has not worked with a virtual team before gets into, and that is what I call task versus time control. Virtual workers are very task focused. That's how they make money—by completing the task as fast as possible with the highest level of quality as possible, right. So you can't expect your virtual team to be like a full time employee that's like sitting there at their office, right? They get to work anywhere they want to work. You should not care, as long as everything is done the way you want it, and when you want it. And now you can see why it's so important that you communicate, how do I want to communicate with you? You know, come to an agreement on that. Time, when is something due, you tell me it's due on such and such a day, this is what it has to be, you know, those kinds of things, expectations. And when things come up, and they will come up, that you have that conversation.
But if somebody is continually not doing things that work for you, then that person is not a good fit for your team. Or you can say it the other way too, you're not a good fit for that person. The way you work doesn't match with how that person works. And that is I've seen the biggest, biggest thing and that's true for customers, too. Your worst customers are ones that don't work inside your system. They always want some special, right? It's not a good customer, if they're always outside of your process. And that's not a good virtual team member, either, if they're always outside your process. So make sure you have a process, you can communicate that process, and that you find people who liked that process, too. And they're out there.
GC: Nice. That's exactly the type of advice I think a lot of business owners need, whether they've been doing it for a long time or they're just starting to dip their toe into this. Seeing the possibilities but also needing to understand some of the challenges that can arise and to be prepared for those and hopefully being able to avoid them.
Ivana, it's been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for your time today and your excellent insights. I just want to let folks again, know to find all of your work at DIYmarketers.com. So, I encourage folks to check you out there and thank you again very much for your time with us today.
IT: Thanks a lot.
GC: Ivana Taylor is the Publisher of DIYmarketers.com. I'm Greg Corombos reporting for Expert Insights. For more information on this topic, please visit bizfilings.com.
BizFilings, a Wolters Kluwer company, has been incorporating businesses since 1996.
