# 7 years ago... I hired my first remote agency, a dev shop. They were with me for about a year before deciding to focus on different industries.I decided to build my own after consulting with a multi-office agency and realizing the benefits of remote employees at scale 😎 Fast forward through dozens of team members around the globe and now I’ve settled on a few destinations. - Eastern Europe for software development and engineering - South America for creatives and easy timezones - South Africa for culture fit and perfect English Why have I built 3 small businesses working remotely? Do I prefer remote workers to in-person agency work? Definitely. I've got a remote team that has provided me with the hardworking A+ smart employees who have become excellent remote workers - even though less than half had worked on remote teams before. ## ****Where You Hire Matters as Much as Who**** When I first started looking to hire remotely, I found an experienced, internet-based work culture in Southeast Asia. The Philippines and India both developed economies to help serve digital outsourcing, which means you can find highly skilled people in their markets. This made them great options when I needed a technical team, but I found their overall culture didn’t match my own. So I started looking into other locations.Eastern Europe is one of the best hiring destinations for developers and engineers, since the Soviet Union built some of the best engineering schools in the world. Developers from Ukraine or Romania wouldn't come to me with a problem — they would go and find the solution. I could tell them what we wanted and they'd do it. That's what I want from my developers, which I was often unable to get from my prior development teams.South America developed largely in the sphere of US influence, and creativity is valued in its cultures. This makes it great for designers who understand the US market and design styles. South America shares time zones with the US, so they are working during my hours. They’re also almost all bilingual, in English and either Spanish or Portuguese.Working with all these teams, I learned that “where” comes down to two necessary criteria. ### ********_MY GRADING CRITERIA_******** 1. ****_Time zone overlap (US)_**** 2. ****_Culture match_**** 3. ****_Hiring pool_**** Time zone overlap refers to waking hours that overlap with the US working day, while culture match refers to how well the culture fits my company and my primarily American client base.Cultural issues became a big deal when I worked with overseas teams on more complex marketing projects, particularly in Southeast Asia. Those cultures highly respect authority, so I had difficulty hiring people who would tell me when I was wrong or if they couldn’t do something.It's not that their English is not excellent. It's that they’re missing parts of the culture that makes the intent translate properly. They're missing the idioms and other cultural touchstones. ## ****Find the Best Value, Not the Cheapest**** When I started searching for the best places to outsource internationally, my goal was to find the best value for my money. The best hiring destination isn’t necessarily the cheapest, but rather the one where my dollar went the farthest in terms of hiring top talent. That's why I chose different places for different roles. The hardest place for me to find was one that offered generalists. People who could be trained into skill sets that require high levels of English competency — in writing, communicating with our clients, and the other work we do as a digital marketing agency. ### ********SOUTH AFRICA******** After a lot of searching, I found that South Africa was the best destination for my sort of raw talent. They want to work, but just haven't been given the opportunity. High unemployment rates have made hiring easier, and because the rand is weak versus the dollar, my money has added value.Most importantly, rather than working overnight shifts, much of my South African team does part of their work in their morning, while I'm asleep. They then work online as a team during the US day, which is their evening and night. This gives them good overlap with my US clients and business. I don't have to worry about my team being tired from an overnight shift.All this comes together with their past as a British colony, which gives South Africa stronger English speakers with a better grasp of the US culture and idioms than I see in Southeast Asia. ## ****Remote Communication For Remote Agencies**** Remote communication makes the assumption that your team is spread across a number of international time zones and across multiple continents. Portions of their communication will be entirely asynchronous, which makes process vitally important. It takes the place of informal communication within the office environment — you need to incorporate many of the check-ins that would happen just by people running into each other in the hallways.For your process to be designed for effective team operation, you have to be aware of the various unique locations and needs of the remote team. The greatest challenges are variability in internet connection and difficulty in communication across time zones. The best way to ensure a team is properly managed and that projects get done, is by having a project management system that operates as the overarching process for the company. A key part of that process is recording _everything_. ### ********RECORD EVERYTHING******** Apply recordkeeping to all things. Record how much time you spend on different tasks. Record the progress of your projects over time. Record all of your team calls and have them transcribed. All of this allows you to keep a definite record, which makes your future management of projects so much easier. Recording and transcription costs almost nothing, but as a result, you have a searchable database of everything that’s happened. ### ********SCHEDULE ONE ON ONES******** Schedule weekly one-on-ones with all your direct reports. These ensure you have a time on the books when both you and a team member will be on the phone, talking through any issues. Regularly scheduled meetings like these will help prevent false emergencies from occurring. Things like somebody saying, three hours before you wake up, that they need something done. ## ****What is the best way to manage remote employees?**** The first thing to know is that when hiring remote for virtual teams, you must take extra precaution. Most people have not been remote workers, and so when hiring remote workers it is vital to use the right tools (personality and skills assessments) to make sure they can be effective when working remotely.  In essence, you must hire remote and hire with a process in order to have a successful remote worker. Make sure that they've used the right tools for work in the past to signal that they'll be a good remote employee. Do they have a history of working short periods for small businesses? Probably not a good remote worker then. Hiring remote workers can be simplified to the following process, feel free to play around with it for your own purposes: 1. Initial application with embedded instruction like "put banana in your cover letter" or "include a picture of your internet speed" to make sure they follow directions and read carefully. 2. Have initial valid candidates undergo a simple test (we use Tony Robbins DISC) or interview to make sure they can adhere to deadlines/be on time. 3. Give them a one-off paid trial working together.Intensive personality assessment and interview (we use TriMetrix from Innerview Advisors) 4. Hire or don't hire. 5. ****_NOTE: ASK EVERYONE THE SAME INTERVIEW QUESTIONS THE SAME WAY._**** I'd expect about ~10% of candidates will make it through the process for an entry-level position, but they'll be excellent remote workers. Once you can hire remote with some process, you'll be ready to manage your remote team much more effectively.  The rest of this article will give you the right tools and tips to do just that. In short: 1. Develop an anti-fragile communications infrastructure 2. Hire people who will be successful in their roles 3. Remove confusion with North Stars like dashboards, SOPs, and other pegs ## ****Single Point of Contact Is Best With Most Clients**** You want the client to speak with only one person — someone the client trusts and who has complete knowledge of the project. When you're working with a remote team, there could be ten people scattered about the world in different time zones. You don't want the client to have to think about that. We try to put the point of contact near or in the same time zone as the client, preferably in the same country. This way, they have somebody who's up during their hours who can meet at their times to discuss the project.  ## ****Picking The Tools for Your Remote Team**** There are two major stacks of technology for remote teams and communication. The first is the Gsuite with Slack, also referred to as the “Startup Stack”. The second is the Microsoft Stack. Your chosen stack will determine what you use in terms of: - Chat Software - Office Suite - Time Tracking ### ********CHAT SOFTWARE (SLACK/TEAMS/OTHER)******** You’ll need chat software for communicating with your team. I highly recommend Slack, though it’s the beginning of the Google Stack. Microsoft has Teams, their own chat app, but I find it hard to use. I think Google has a better overall set of tools for managing a remote team because they built for the cloud. ### ********OFFICE SUITE (GOOGLE/MICROSOFT)******** The key differentiator between the two stacks is their office suites; you have to choose between G Suite or Microsoft Office. This includes your word processor, your email platform, your slideshow, and your spreadsheets. At Call for Content and South Africa Talent, we use Google, G Suite, and Slack. ### ********PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE******** You don't need a complete software solution for just one person, but it’s highly recommended for more than two people. Something as simple as Trello or Kanban Board and Google Sheets is a good starting point. By the time you reach four or five team members, you’ll _need_ project management software implemented to ensure the team keeps running itself effectively.We use and love is monday.com. I came from Asana before that, and while Asana is a great piece of software, Monday is a little prettier, and our team found it easier to use. This includes a wide variety of contractors, for whom this will not be their only project management system, since they work with multiple clients. This project management system then becomes the highest level of priority — the system at which the tasks are differentiated. ### ********TIME TRACKING SOFTWARE******** We use TimeDoctor since it integrates with our payment, and accounting, and project management systems. We've heard good things about Hubstaff and Harvest and others, but I haven't tried them and can't comment beyond they all work well. Timedoctor won during our trials because it would continue to operate even if the network dropped via desktop app. ### ********VIDEO CHAT SOFTWARE (ZOOM)******** Google and Microsoft both have options built in for video conference solutions. We use Zoom, which is not built in, because it's amazing and has many useful features. Zoom has cloud recordings that automatically sync with our transcription application. I cannot stress enough how useful that is. And it works on both mobile and desktop, so someone can connect using their phone if they’re away from their computer.Zoom has many functional webinar features, one of which is breakout rooms. This allows you to move people from the main room into private sections, which is especially useful for workshops or team strategy meetings, where people split off before coming back together. Up to a hundred people can participate in a single call. ### ********RECORDING ARCHIVE (****[****OTTER.AI****](https://otter.ai/referrals/2KY6VPXK)****)******** [Otter.ai is incredibly useful for remote work.](https://otter.ai/referrals/2KY6VPXK) It allows us to record all of our meetings and have them automatically integrated into our searchable, transcribed database. Our clients appreciate having recordings of the meetings, since we give them ideas during meetings and they don't have to write those down. Having a tool that records and transcribes all of your virtual team's meetings is vital to any remote agency or small business.Having recordings of our meetings makes it easier for remote teams. That's part of how we train our employees: by giving them recorded calls that are good examples of different situations. These recorded meetings are also available to team members who couldn't attend, which includes me. This is particularly valuable, because I can see my team’s interactions with the client without being there, and my team can see how we interact with clients as a company without being there. We can understand how the client considers the company without ever having to ask them.Recording becomes so much more important when you assign a single point of contact, since the information from the meeting still has to be disseminated to the rest of the team members. People are bad options for passing along information. It's better to give an accurate representation of the facts, rather than the distortion brought to you by playing telephone with your team. ## ****Prioritize Communication Channels and Response Times**** Many people consider being remote an inhibitor to communication, but we find it to be a clarifying force. How do you overcome communication challenges on a remote team? ****_Develop a communication infrastructure that assumes we are asynchronous and remote._****In terms of communicating with people, your options are phones, email, video conferencing, and chat. We recommend creating a prioritized list with response times for your internal and external communication channels so that your team can reach you based on the priority.For example, my team at Call for Content knows the highest level priority message they can send me is calling my cell phone or texting me; the lowest priority message they can send me is via email. They will hear from me within 24 hours if they messaged me on Slack, and likely, they'll hear from me that day, within the next hour or so — that's the best place to reach me. If they have a question or comment about a specific project on which we’re working, that is likely associated with a specific task or deliverable to be done for the project, which means it should be in Monday, because I check it every day.By creating this prioritization of communication channels, you’re able to give people an understanding of how to reach each other, an understanding of what appropriate communication looks like when nobody's online at the same time. ### ********PEG TO A TIMEZONE******** I highly recommend you peg to a single time zone so nobody in the company has to ask about time zones when you're scheduling meetings. When my team and I set meetings, we work off US Mountain Time, because that's the time zone in which I'm located. Most companies with remote teams peg to US Pacific or US Eastern Time. ### ********CAN SALES GO REMOTE?******** Sales were remote (outside) before it was inside. Traveling to meet people in person out of the office is the original sales tactic. Inside sales, in particular, is a simple sales strategy to implement remote, and the performance-based nature of sales makes it a natural fit as a remote position. To manage a sales team remotely: 1. Use a CRM and have it updated regularly. 2. Hold daily or weekly pipeline review meetings with your salespeople, and monthly meetings as a team. 3. Ensure the majority of their compensation is in commission.Set their first 60-90 days as a trial run. 4. You should have an excellent idea if they'll work out based on deal momentum in the first 30-45 days, depending on your sales cycle. ## ****7 Laws From 6 Years Remote Agency Life Distilled**** 1. ********_THOU SHALL NOT MIX AN OFFICE TEAM WITH A FEW REMOTE WORKERS._******** 2. ********_THOU SHALL EMPHASIZE MEASURED PERFORMANCE OVER HOURS WHENEVER POSSIBLE._******** 3. ********_THOU SHALL THOROUGHLY VET NEW TEAM MEMBERS, USING BOTH PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT TO ENSURE SELF DIRECTION AND SKILLS TRIALS TO ENSURE THEY CAN DO THE WORK._******** 4. ********_RECORD EVERYTHING YOU CAN!_******** 5. ********_FIND THE BEST VALUE, NOT THE CHEAPEST!_******** 6. ********_PREFER VIDEO COMMUNICATION, BUILD TEAM TRUST OVER TIME._******** 7. ********_PROCESS ALLOWS FOR SYSTEMS WHICH ALLOW FOR SCALE._********