Building Hybrid Teams with Global Talent with Noel Andrews

Danyel McLellan [00:00:01]: 

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to midsize agencies are getting things done. Bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew Mclellan. 

Drew McLellan [00:00:37]: 

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute, back with another episode of Build a Better Agency. And we are going to talk about a different way of building your agency today that we’re seeing as a growing trend among the agencies that we work with. And so we’re going to kind of explore that a little bit. Before we do, I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they are the presenting sponsor of this podcast, so, uh, they make it possible for me to hang out with you every week and I’m super grateful for them. So if you’re not familiar with them, one of the things that makes them really unique is the way that they structure how agencies work with them. So they do, uh, white label design, dev, and paid media. And so they’re often an extension of an agency’s team. So if you have a couple little jobs piling up, you can tap into them kind of ad hoc.. If you want the protection of a fixed price, you can kind of, you know, if you’ve got a bigger project and you want to keep your margins safe, they could do that too. If you need a full-time person embedded in your shop, they’ve got FTE programs that will bring that continuity and the deeper integration. So whatever you want, whether it’s a little piddly project or it’s actually a full-time employee, wherever on that range, they can help you with that. So They know how to do this because they’re born from agency experience. They’ve lived agency life. They know that there’s nothing cookie cutter about it, and they can’t just have one solution for you. They know they have to have multiple solutions. So they’re not just a bunch of freelancers floating around. They’re structured like an agency. And because they only focus on design, dev, and paid media, they’re built to plug in exactly where you need them. So any of that sounds interesting to you, or you just want to learn more about them, head over to whitelabeliq.com/ami. To find out what they have for you available because you’re a podcast listener. And be sure you say to them, hey, love the podcast, thank you for sponsoring. Let them know that you appreciate it. All right. Okay, so let me tell you a little bit about our guest. So he is a repeat guest. Uh, he was a speaker at the summit a few years ago, and he is on the edge of a big, big trend that we’re seeing amongst agencies, and that’s agencies hiring full-time team members who happen to live offshore, who happen to live in a different part of the world than where the agency is based. So typically you’re a US-based agency and this is a full-time employee. And with, with Noel’s agency, they typically are going to be from Eastern Europe and South Africa. So Noel Andrews owns a company called JobRack, and he has placed many full-time team members with EMI agencies. And I’m telling you, our agencies are raving about the experience, about the quality level of the employee, and not just the quality level of their technical work or their work, but also the quality level of them just as a, as a team member, as an employee, and how, and how they are kind of shaping and reshaping the US-based team as well. So it’s really been an interesting phenomenon that we’re going to dig into a little bit more, with Noel and find out how that’s, how that’s playing out from his perspective. And also what we can do if we have, whether it’s through Noel or it’s through anybody else, if we have independent contractors or we’re just a dispersed team of full-time equivalents, how do we create culture and connectivity and a better quality of work, uh, when we’re not all under the same roof? So without further ado, let’s welcome him to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. 

Noel Andrews [00:04:22]: 

Good to have you back. Yeah, great to be here, Drew. 

Drew McLellan [00:04:26]: 

So tell everybody a little bit about your background, the work you’re doing now before we jump into the conversation, just so they have a context of sort of where you are in the world and the kind of work you’re doing. 

Noel Andrews [00:04:38]: 

Yeah, no worries at all. So I’m Noel, based here in London, England, um, and I run JobRack, and we help agency owners hire really, really great team members, uh, from Eastern Europe and South Africa. So two real kind of sweet spots of remote hiring. With a real focus on proper long-term team members. So not freelancers, not gig workers, but the kind of people that you want to build your agency around. Amazing people, amazing talent at, you know, considerably lower rates than, than the challenge of hiring locally in the US. 

Drew McLellan [00:05:07]: 

Yeah. So how has that changed over the last few years? How is— how has that worked? So, you know, I, I can remember the day when people— everybody had a VA from the Philippines or from South America, but You know, to your point, that was gig work. It was a block of hours a week or a month, and the tasks were administrative. They were really on the lower end of the tasks. And, and really, I think one of the things I’m observing with the work that you’re doing is a couple things that are different. Number one, these are full-time employees, even though we can’t call them employees because of how we pay them, but they, they do participate in the company like an employee. So they attend all the internal meetings. They’re on your time zone, they are, and, and much higher level, higher skilled folks than just a VA. So talk to me a little bit about the trends that you’re seeing in your world versus kind of what international hiring used to look like. 

Noel Andrews [00:06:08]: 

So there’s a few, and I mean, the pandemic was pretty pivotal, right? That woke the whole world up, and particularly in like, you know, Western, Western countries like US, Canada, the UK, Previously, there were a lot of business owners that were like, yeah, remote’s not for me, I like having the team in the office, etc. Then pandemic happened and, oh, suddenly we were working remotely. Oh, it can work actually, and it can work really well. So that opened things up. Then we’ve had like, you know, we’ve had trends like quiet quitting, the big great resignation, things like that. And the cost of hiring locally and the complexity with compliance, etc., benefits, um, but also availability of people like there is this massive rush towards the entrepreneurial dream, right? Right. Lots of people, you know, they’re coming out of university or college, they don’t want to get a job, right? They’re kind of like, I’m going to be an influencer, or I’m going to start my own thing, right? Which is great, right? It’s absolutely brilliant. But it does mean that it’s getting harder and harder to hire locally. So yeah, I think we’ve almost seen this— I’ll call it a perfect storm in a sense— but this perfect collection of occurrences that have led to more people being kind of prepared to consider hiring remotely and not being able to have their team locally. And at the same time that that happens, it’s like a flywheel, right? More people hire remotely, there’s incredible talent like all over the world, which means that that talent gets more and more US agency experience, right? Which means that then a few years down the line, maybe they’re looking to move on, etc. Then suddenly there’s again, there’s even more experienced people. So I think there’s a— I’ve seen a massive increase in the number of agencies and the number of businesses that are open to it. More and more people are really struggling to hire locally, whether that’s, you know, salary challenges, expectation entitlement challenges. Yep. And as you said, they— I think our almost like our kind of expectation and realization that, oh, hang on a minute, I can have real team members that are further away and I can give them real responsibility, accountability. This isn’t just for an account administrator or a VA. They can be a senior account manager, or they can be a PPC specialist, right? They can be a client, a strategist in front of my clients. And I think that’s been huge. So, you know, people kind of realizing that and going, what is possible? And I think to your point as well, it’s this— I use the word team members, right? So legally, most of us hire people, you know, as independent contractors. They’re responsible for their own tax and Social Security. But they look like a W-2, they feel like a W-2 employee. And that’s why we use the word team members, because that’s how— like, I don’t want to build my business around freelancers, right? I use freelancers from time to time, but I want real people that I’m getting their shower from each morning, right? I can count on, right? That are waking up kind of thinking about— kind of thinking about me, if that doesn’t sound too weird. 

Drew McLellan [00:08:59]: 

Yeah. Well, I think it’s really interesting because, you know, a lot of our agencies have worked with you to hire team members. And I hear— I consistently hear two things. And I’m wondering if you’re hearing it from your other clients too. Number one, I had no idea I could get this level of skill offshore. Like, we just have a dismissive, like, idea that it’s mostly admin-level people. Yeah. Who are living in other countries. That it’s, it’s not that we don’t think that there aren’t talented people in other countries, but we don’t think this is the way they want to work. And it turns out it does. And number two, The attitude of the international team members is changing the culture of the company for the better. These, that these team members are some of, some of the things that we talk about in the States, and I think also in Europe, uh, about sort of the entitlement of our employees or that sense of everybody, you know, no matter what you give them, they want more, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Our people aren’t seeing that from the international talent. They’re really seeing a, a kind of a humble, grateful employee or team member who is really loving the work, very collaborative, wants to really contribute. And so what they’re saying is the, the international team members are starting to change the attitude of the US-based team members because how they’re talking in team meetings and things like that is starting to shape culture a little bit. 

Noel Andrews [00:10:33]: 

Yeah, 100%. And it, it almost gets a little bit awkward, right? We’ve got— I was chatting to one client recently and I was in a conversation, there was 3 of us, and he’s talking to someone else about the people that we found him. And he’s like, the best account managers I’ve got are international, right? It’s not my US team. And, and it does— it is a bar raiser for sure. I think the, the culture bit’s super, super interesting, right? It is, you know, people often talk in the US about like the immigrant, like, work ethic, right? People have come to the US, right, and they, they’re striving to build a better life. And the Nvidia CEO talked about this when he was doing a speech at Stanford, right? And Jensen Huang. And he talked about, you know, people that have known real hardship, they’ve got kind of grit and determination, right? And they just striving to be better. And he, to the, to the class of Stanford, he said, I wish upon you hardship and suffering. Because that’s what builds resilience. And a lot of people have a bit less resilience these days. One of the things that I see, and I really love this moment that happens really regularly, is like naturally, you know, people talk about international hiring and offshore hiring because of the costs, right? You can hire cheaper, right? And there’s a lot of benefit in that because it means you can hire earlier. You’re not waiting for utilization rates to be like 90, 95, 100%, right? You can get better margin, right? So people come to us initially because of the cost, right? They’re like, hey, I’ve heard I can get a great person for X. The reason they stay is, as you mentioned, there’s the quality. There’s like this, like, oh wow, these people are really good. And it typically happens when people see the shortlist, or maybe 3 or 4 weeks in. And I get emails all the time going, this person’s amazing, like, yeah, way better than I thought. And they had high expectations, right? 

Drew McLellan [00:12:17]: 

And we’re talking department head level people or highly skilled and technical people. Again, we’re not talking admin level. That’s— I think that’s what’s surprising people is they, they are used to finding good admin level people offshore. But this, the idea, and frankly, it’s a, it’s a little US arrogant, right? Like, yeah, I know you can’t say it, but I can say it. Like, it’s a little like Oh, you mean people in other parts of the world are really good at SEO or UX/UI coding or, you know, whatever. And it’s like, well, yeah, but we just don’t think of it that way. And in fairness, people have tried to do some of this hiring and it hasn’t always gone well. I mean, that’s part of the— what your company does with the screening and all of that. But anyway, I, I’m telling you, I’m hearing the same thing. People are surprised at the skill level and the attitudinal level of the international team. 

Noel Andrews [00:13:18]: 

Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the biggest shift that we’ve seen, right? So if you— let’s say 5 years ago, if you’d asked someone like about— or talk to someone about like really great technical talent, like how there’s amazing developers from Eastern Europe, they would have been like, oh yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the stories about, right, great devs from Poland or great devs from Serbia. And what’s happening now is like, you know, other roles are catching up and that word is out there as more and more people are talking, going, oh yeah, I’ve got this incredible SEO strategist or agency account manager or whatever it might be. And it’s then kind of drifting down and like South Africa is like the latest kind of hotspot, right? Particularly for client-facing roles, you know, English as a first language, incredibly like friendly communication style. You know, we’ve been in Eastern Europe for a long time. We’ve been working with people in, in placing people from South Africa for like the last like 3 years or so. Yeah. And again, huge market. And again, the world is starting to kind of talk about it a lot more as, you know, people kind of tap into this other region. 

Drew McLellan [00:14:17]: 

Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, it’s really interesting. So all of that, all of that to be said is you have an interesting lens. But what I want to talk about today isn’t so much the international hiring. I mean, I’m sure we’ll get into it a little bit, but and obviously your contact information will be in the show notes if people want to chat with you about that. But you have an interesting lens into how agencies are staffing, how agencies are getting work done because you are coming alongside them as a staffing partner. So I’m curious, as you know, 2025 was a— for many agencies was a challenging year. New business, particularly the second quarter. Once here in the States, the tariffs hit and we’ve got a lot of economic, you know, sort of uncertainty and tension in all the ways here in the States. So I’m just curious what your observations are about how agencies are sort of thinking about employment, structuring their employment, and where they are maybe missing out on leveraging, whether it’s international talent or domestic talent, sort of Where are we getting it not quite right? So I feel like everybody’s in sort of a bit of a tense— whether they’re afraid or it’s just there’s a tension, an anxiety that is sort of permeating through, I think, the work. What are you seeing as a sort of inside-outside observer as you look at agencies and how they are approaching staffing in general? 

Noel Andrews [00:15:55]: 

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I’m seeing, or the biggest difference I’m seeing between the agencies that are doing really well with their teams regardless of where in the world they are, and the ones that are maybe struggling and having a bit more hardship, is the ones that are leaning into culture, right? The ones that are really leaning into building a team and really making people feel like they’re part of a team and part of something bigger. You’re particularly important when, when things are a bit tricky, right? When the pipeline slows down a little bit, when sales are taking longer to convert. You know, it’s all the more important that the team are doing great work, right? That the account managers or the clients are really being looked after and reminded about the great work that, you know, agencies are doing for them. And, and all of this kicks in for me to— you know, people talk about how do I build a great culture. Well, for me it starts with there’s lots of little things that you do that together, you know, create the kind of culture you want. And so I think that’s the single biggest thing I’m seeing, like, and I talk to lots and lots of agency owners, and the ones that are leaning into that, particularly when times are difficult, means that their team members are staying engaged, their team members are staying with them, right? Rather than going, oh, hang on, this is looking a bit sketchy, right? It’s very uncertain. We’ve not had sales for a little while. Is this business going to be okay? Should I, should I jump? Should I move on? Right? So I think that’s the thing. And it’s something that I hugely encourage, because if you’ve got a great positive culture, if you’ve got team members that are kind of going above and beyond, right? I talk a lot about my favorite book, which is The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, and And they talk about how you, most business B2B moments, like experiences are pretty mediocre, right? And it’s not hard to do something to go above and beyond, right? Do, you know, I don’t know, let’s say your delivery team aren’t that busy just now, do some pro bono work, right? For your existing clients. I was thinking about you, we just mocked this up. What do you think? If it’s useful, try it out, right? Use them. So I think that’s the thing, you know, really keeping your team happy. And that link to that is making sure you’ve got the right team members, that they want to be there. Yeah, I’ve done some of that with my, my team this, this year, and you’re all great people, but I’ve had a couple of conversations with people saying, hey, you know, what do you really want? How can I help you get there? And we actually did— we did a team retreat in Turkey in September, all my team together from South Africa and from Eastern Europe, and we did a dreamlining exercise, which is something that comes from Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek, and it’s all about the personal dreams, like what do they really want. And off the back of that, 2 team members left, right? But that was a good thing because they’d realized there was a thing that they wanted, and we had a really open and frank conversation. I’m like, if that’s what you want, I’m going to help you get there, right? Right. And I’m completely down with that. And I think it’s, uh, was it Zig Ziglar’s quote, something like, you know, you can have anything in the world that you want so long as you help other people get what they want first? 

Drew McLellan [00:18:48]: 

That’s right. It always makes me think of the book Dream Manager Which is the same thing, like figuring out what your team needs and wants and then helping them how you can support them in, in pursuing those dreams. Yeah. So a lot of agencies are struggling with culture in general because they’re used to in-person culture, right? So every Thursday we have Thirsty Thursdays and at 4 o’clock we crack open the beers and we do the thing. So how the agencies that are doing culture well. With a remote or hybrid team, again, whether they have international team members or not, what are they doing different that really connects that culture in a meaningful way? 

Noel Andrews [00:19:32]: 

Yeah, they’re being intentional about it, right? So in the same way that, you know, planning Thirsty Thursdays, if you’re in an office, right, takes some planning, takes some intention, same thing for remote. And it’s just then going, right, what can we do that’s going to help them to connect? So, you know, Some of the things that we do that I know many of our agency clients do is, you know, they have like automated check-ins on Slack that just helps to get a conversation going, right? Different question each day. Maybe it’s Thankful Thursday, maybe it’s like, you know, Friday celebration, what are you up to at the weekend, that just starts the conversation. But then they continue that on. So, you know, they might do a fun team meeting every 3 or 4 weeks, right? It’s 45 minutes, everyone comes on Zoom, different people organize it. And I think that’s what’s really key for me is it can’t just be you or an EA or an office manager or whatever organizing it, you want the team to really feed in. So I think the biggest thing is being intentional, right? And then figuring out what’s right for you and your team based on your kind of vibe, right? Is it that you do some lunch and learns, right? For me, like, a lot of our meetings are not all about work, right? There is very much a getting to know you component. We do fun questions, you know, how can we get the team to know each other? Because then they support each other better. Right? It breaks down the barriers versus just some, you know, someone on the other end of Zoom or Google Meet. So ultimately, yeah, it’s about being intentional about it and going, I do want to build a culture and I’m willing to put in a little bit of effort. And it’s, it’s really not huge because you get the team to help with it as well. 

Drew McLellan [00:21:01]: 

Yeah, yeah. I do think a lot of it is about just creating the human side of the connection, which is just letting people get to know each other and care about each other as human beings, not just as somebody who’s, you know, I’m handing work off to and then expecting work to be handed back to me. 

Noel Andrews [00:21:19]: 

Yeah, yeah, 100%. It makes a huge difference, and it’s a lot more fun as a, you know, the kind of business to run. It’s a lot more fun, right? People generally then supporting each other, less stuff is coming up to you in terms of questions, but people are happy, right? And you keep people happy and they stay, right? Give them challenging work, you know, give them good goals, things like that. That’s what you want to be doing. You want to be challenging people and giving them the kind of environment they can like really grow. And almost, I think there’s a really years-old stat that says if someone has a good friend at work, on average, their tenure is something like 2 years. 

Drew McLellan [00:21:52]: 

Longer than if they don’t. Right, right. Yeah. I know that, I know that a lot of times you talk about that when you see agencies doing really well, one of the things, one of the behaviors that you see exhibited is that they have a lot of clarity around what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, who’s doing what. So talk a little bit about sort of that, sort of dialing that in. 

Noel Andrews [00:22:20]: 

Yeah, so clarity is— I think it’s the new superpower, right, frankly, um, and in particularly in hiring. So it’s almost— and ChatGPT is both helping and hindering this, and like the LLM. So for me, if you don’t know what you want someone to do right? If you don’t know— even if we talk about like an agency’s clients, right? If you don’t know what they want, it’s going to be extremely hard for you to get it for them, right? Right. And, you know, sometimes we might have really detailed SOWs and contracts, things like that, but they can often still miss the, miss the point. So I think a lot is about being super, super clear about what it is— what does the agency owner want? Like, what’s the kind of agency that you’re trying to build, right? Right. What experience do you want your clients to have, right? Yeah. And then design that, right? And that comes, you know, again, there’s lots of books on this. The Power of Moments is one of them. Like, what’s the business that you want to build, right? There’s a lot of accidental agency owners out there, right? Yep. And it doesn’t mean they don’t like their agency, but it might mean that they’ve never sat down to do a, you know, Cameron Herald style vivid vision, for instance, right? 

Drew McLellan [00:23:26]: 

Yeah. 

Noel Andrews [00:23:26]: 

But just a little bit of time. And again, I, I do think ChatGPT is great for this, to, to help prompt you to come up and go What do you actually want, right? What do you want your client experience to be? Which services do you want to offer? And so I think you get clear, and then that gives you half a chance to set clear expectations with people, right? And I think that, you know, we’ve got this term prompt engineering, right? We know that with the LLMs, if we give them a vague input, we’re getting a really terrible output, right? I think this is going to enable us to be better in real life. 

Drew McLellan [00:24:00]: 

Yeah, right. Prompt inputting works with humans about the same way, right? 

Noel Andrews [00:24:03]: 

Yeah, 100%. Like, I don’t know if you’re anything like me, right? I’ve been for, I don’t know, hundreds of haircuts in my time, right? Right. And I go in and they’re like, what do you want? I’m like, uh, I don’t know, bit off the sides, bit shorter. Vague as anything, right? Right. And there’s lots of instances, like if I’m in a florist, right, I’ve got no idea how to ask for what I want, right? And but I think this is where prompt engineering is going to make us much better, right? And I think it’s got the chance to go, right, I need to get clarity first. So as an example, when it comes to hiring, we slow things down, right? We slow the upfront bit right down, same as, you know, we should when we’re, you know, figuring out what a client wants. For instance, in, you know, if you’re trying to build an SOW, right, what is it that they want? What do they think they want versus what do they really need? Get really, really clear. Then you can, you know, move at pace, right, and actually deliver it. But I think that the clarity in every way— you know, what do you expect from people, Have you communicated that clearly? You know, have people got clear, like, vision statements in a sense, or just a paragraph or two saying what’s the vision for their role, right? What are you expecting? Have we got some very simple but straightforward KPIs and metrics for each person so that they know what you actually want? Are we being clear about the feedback? So I think all of this, when you get it right, or even if you get it a little bit right, really compounds into people going, oh yeah, I know what, I know what Drew wants from me. I can go and do it instead of that kind of slightly vague, we’re kind of busy. Oh yeah, I just want you to do that for me. And then inevitably we get disappointed, they get frustrated, and no one ends up happy. 

Drew McLellan [00:25:36]: 

Yeah. Yeah. It’s so true. And I think we just do this as human beings. We have such a clear idea in our head of what we want that we, that we forget that we have to translate that to the other human being. And I think we do that with our children. I think we do that with our spouse. I think we do that with our coworkers. That we expect them to just know. And so I think in some cases we don’t have clarity in our own head, but even when, if we have the clarity, we don’t often do a good job of communicating that. And communicating it often is, that’s I think the other thing, right? It’s, it’s not a one and done. I, hey, I, hey, we’re gonna, once a year we’re gonna have a team meeting. I’m gonna talk to you about how I want our client experience to be. And then we don’t talk about it again. You know, you’ve got to weave it into regular conversations, check-ins, celebrations of when people do it right. Yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to make it a part of the regular conversation to really reinforce that. 

Noel Andrews [00:26:37]: 

It, that it matters. Yeah, and, and it’s remembering that, you know, we would love to just be able to communicate things, you know, even if we in one way, but actually everyone you know, I don’t mean this in terms of literal different languages, but everyone needs— might need to hear a slight variation on the message. Say love languages, for instance, right? Everyone’s got their own love language, right? And even though mine might be, I don’t know, acts of service, and yours might be quality time, if I just do acts of service for you, you’re not going to feel the love, right? Right. I’ve got to speak in a way and communicate in a way so that it lands with you. And again, that’s really important with our team, and it we often don’t want to put that effort in because we’re like, well, I just want to tell them what I want, right? But what we do really want is the outcome from it, and the outcome is really powerful when we get it right. And again, it’s that taking a little minute to slow down and go, right, what does this person need from me, right? What can I do to really influence this person and this team member so. 

Drew McLellan [00:27:33]: 

That they can be great? Yeah, well, and I think that’s a big part of it, right? Like, how do you How do you communicate to your team that what great looks like and that you want to set them up for that success and support them so they can deliver at that level? Right. And I think, I think a lot of it is, it’s, it’s also the intentionality of moving the problems or the barriers out of the way so they have the best shot at being really great at the work that they do. So I want to, I want to jump into that. Uh, but first let’s take a quick break and then let’s talk about how do, how do you see agencies that are doing that really well? What are they doing? So, but we’ll take a quick break and then we’ll come back. Are you tired of juggling multiple tools to manage your agency? Meet Deltek Workbook, the all-in-one solution for marketing and communications agencies. Streamline your projects, resources, and finances all in one place. With real-time dashboards and reporting, you’ll have full project visibility. You can plan team capacity weeks ahead to avoid bottlenecks and keep your budgets on track to maximize profitability. It’s perfect for both agencies and in-house marketing teams looking to work more efficiently. PCI is a certified Deltek partner offering expert implementation and support to ensure your success. If you’re ready to transform your operations, visit pci.us/podcast for a free consultation today. Hey everybody, thanks for listening today. Before I get back to the interview, I just want to remind you that we are always offering some really amazing workshops, and you can see the whole schedule at agencymanagementinstitute.com. On the navigation, head to How We Help, scroll down and you’ll see workshops, and you can see the whole list there with descriptions of each workshop. They are all in Denver. And we’ve got them throughout the year for agency owners, account execs, agency leaders, CFOs. We have a little something for everybody, no matter what it is that you’re struggling with— people, new business, money, all of those things we’ve got covered. So check them out and come join us. All right, let’s get back to the show. All right, we’re back with Noel Andrews, and we’re talking from JobRack, and we’re talking about sort of— he has an interesting lens of how agencies are functioning with team members. Again, whether they’re in your country of origin based or they’re offshore or whatever it may be. So we were talking before the break about clarity and how important that is. And first of all, we have to be really clear about what we want in terms of the work we do, the client experience, the team experience. And then we have to communicate that in a variety of ways so that every— so it really resonates with everyone. And it’s not a one and done communication. All of that to be said, we want to set our employees up, our team members up to be successful. So talk a little bit about sort of the idea of how you see agencies. What are they giving their team members? How are they supporting team members to sort of open up the doors for them to be as good as possible at their job? 

Noel Andrews [00:30:54]: 

Yeah, the, the biggest thing I’ve seen this year, and I’ve seen it called a variety of different things, is, you know, our job as agency owners is to basically solve blockers, right? So what can we do to enable our team members, to give them leverage? And so I’ve got something I refer to as gunk busting. I got it from an agency owning friend of mine. Um, some people call it gardening. So the big thing for me is like, what is getting in the way of our teams, right? And we’ve seen it. I’ve seen a lot of our agency clients do this where they are really focused on removing blockers, right? So day to day, what’s slowing you down? Are you having to— I know put the information into two different systems, right? Are you having to search for access to information stuff? Our SOP is not clear. Do you need to do six different logins? Do you need to do things twice, right? And because no one wants that, right? That is, you know, I refer to it as gunk, right? It’s slowing down. So how can we get that out the way? And I chatted to one agency owner this year, he’s like, you know, kind of classic, he’s like, look, I don’t want my team bringing me problems, I want them bringing me solutions. And I’m like, cool, I get that. But I challenge it because, you know, your team members might not be, you know, let’s say you’ve got a really great account manager as an example. They’re going to be great with people. They may not be the techie coding automation person that can jump into Zapier and develop your automations. Right? Right. You don’t need them to be. You just need them to raise their hand and say, hey, I found this thing. I think it could be better. Right? Could anyone help me with it? And then you or someone else can unblock it. So I think I’m seeing, you know, some really great agencies that are focused on, you know, how do we make day-to-day life better for our team members, right? How can we get stuff out the way so they can be operating in their zone of genius? Yeah, right. You know, we’ve got really great, you know, let’s say kind of account strategists, for instance. They’re absolute, you know, for a marketing agency, right? They’re absolute marketing Gurus, right? Right. Should they be doing admin? No, probably not, right? That’s something that you can delegate and outsource for $10, $15 an hour, something like that. They’re on considerably more than that, and it means that they can spend more of their hours doing the really high-value work. So, you know, it’s really often that we talk about, you know, the agency owner getting an executive assistant, or maybe we get an operations specialist, something like that. But I’m looking a lot and saying, hey, how can we get leverage for our you know, all of our team members, right? Right. Naturally, we look to AI, we look to automations, but sometimes it’s just better to actually put a person in there and give them support. So, you know, you’ve got a bunch of account managers, for instance. What about an account coordinator that’s doing a lot of the grunt work and a lot of the doing, right? And help automate. So I think in answer to your question, it’s very much about agencies not just saying, hey, well, that’s how we’ve always done it, right? The classic cliché. And going, hey, how do we make this better for our team members? Because then the team member’s more engaged, they’re not feeling like they’re doing low-level work, they’re just more fired up, and then they’re doing a better job as a result. That links in with the AI piece about, you know, I remember talking to a content writing agency owner. Um, he had a really, really significant agency. This is a couple of years ago, and his team were very fearful of AI, right? 

Drew McLellan [00:34:11]: 

Understandably, right? 

Noel Andrews [00:34:11]: 

He could— you’re probably— he was looking at getting like a 5-to-1 efficiency ratio of using AI to support writing, right? But he wanted his team to be, you know, really enabling this. So what he said to his team, he said, I guarantee you your jobs are safe. They might be a different job, but I guarantee your jobs. Help me automate what you do. Help us improve and drive efficiency with the high quality that we want. And he made massive inroads, right? And his team stayed because it meant they were then doing higher-level work. So I think it’s encouraging people to not be fearful, you know, and so that they’re all basically driving for the same thing you want, right? Improved margin, improved, um, service, improved results for the clients, because that’s what keeps it all ticking. 

Drew McLellan [00:34:54]: 

Yeah, yeah. So when you observe someone doing this well, what are 2 or 3 things, really tangible things, that you see them doing that show up in this result? 

Noel Andrews [00:35:08]: 

They are making sure that someone is spending time, you know, with the delivery team, right? So in my case, I have my EA Anna, who she’s absolutely amazing and she loves automation and tech. She can go and sit, kind of sit on the shoulder of one of my recruiters and just watch what they’re doing, right? And then from that, she can bring the inspiration to be like, oh, we can automate that, right? We can help you there, right? 

Drew McLellan [00:35:32]: 

She can spot the gunk. 

Noel Andrews [00:35:34]: 

Oh, interesting, right, right. Now if I go and sit on the shoulder of one of my recruiters, right, it’s a little bit more intimidating for them, right? I mean, we’re super— yeah, we get on really great, but it’s just a bit different having a boss yourself. 

Drew McLellan [00:35:46]: 

Yeah. 

Noel Andrews [00:35:46]: 

So I think making sure that someone is getting a really good insight into what your team are doing and how they’re doing it, because they’re not— they’ve always been doing it this way, they might not be able to go, hey, actually, I think we can do this a better way. So getting into the detail, like making sure that someone’s doing that to find the opportunities. Once you find them, acting on them and acting on them quickly. Right. There’s nothing more demotivating to a team than raising, hey, I think there’s an opportunity here, or I think there’s a problem here. And it takes months and months and months. It doesn’t need to take months. We can move really fast on stuff. So I think that, you know, making sure that you— and you communicate clearly. We find problems or issues from time to time that we can’t do anything about. It’s a system limitation, right? Like that. But we communicate openly and we go, look, we’re going to keep it on the list, but we don’t have a solution for it today. And then I think the third thing is just about getting the team energized and kind of pulling in the same direction. It’s such a cliché, but if they understand that it’s in their interest and it’s in everyone’s interest for the agency to be as successful and profitable as it can be, right? Yeah. When we all have a good margin, when we are profitable, there’s a lot more fun that can be had. The mood is better, right? There’s things we can do. And so I think really communicating that clearly, whether times are good, great, or ugly, communicating that really clearly, and people kind of galvanize around that. And again, all comes back to culture. 

Drew McLellan [00:37:14]: 

How do you find the international team members— how do they, or could they, contribute to this? Like, is it about like they have a different lens? Is it like, how do you If you’ve got somebody on your team from somewhere else in the world, how do you plug into that sort of different viewpoint? 

Noel Andrews [00:37:39]: 

I think I— so we had a new team member join JobRack yesterday, and the first thing I said to her, you know, I’m doing that kind of my morning welcome as it were on the first day, and I’m saying, you know, there’s two reasons why we’ve brought you in, right? One is because we think you’re going to be a really great team member and a really great addition. And two is because we want your experience, right? You’ve worked in other places and you’ve worked in other places with very different cultures, right? Bring that, right? And really, and so for me, I really want to encourage that, right? And there are different, there are cultural differences, right? Very compatible with, you know, US and kind of UK and our businesses, but there are differences that people look at this not through a how can I do this with the lowest possible effort maybe, or how can I, you know, make this easy, but actually how can I do this really well? Right, right. So I think that, you know, leaning in, basically really encouraging it. So classic one, you know, historically lots and lots of people have tried having VAs or EAs from the Philippines, right? Yeah, wonderful people, right? I’ve got great friends out there, but culturally it’s a more hierarchical culture, right? Which means it’s very difficult, like classically, for them to challenge the boss and be proactive, right? Right. Because you’re kind of going against the cultural grain. So you have to work really hard to extract that. Eastern Europe, South Africa, much more kind of direct, right? Someone recently referred to people from Eastern Europe and their communication style. He’s like, oh, it’s like they’re from New York, but they’re friendlier, right? And, and straight away you’re like, okay, I get what you mean. So I think encouraging that, right? Hey, I want your eyes and ears open, right? Tell me what you’re spotting, tell me what you see differently. And that, that cultural lens does sometimes, you know, bring up things that, you know, other people haven’t spotted. 

Drew McLellan [00:39:22]: 

Yeah. Yeah. So as you look to 2026, what do you see on the landscape of hiring, on the landscape of the way agencies get work done? What do you— how are you seeing even how AI is impacting international hiring and all? Like, what, what are the trends you’re seeing for 2026 that you’re anticipating are going to influence the work you do. 

Noel Andrews [00:39:49]: 

Within and for agencies? Yeah, I think— I mean, the future is not bright for really low-level roles, right? That’s, you know, I’ve seen some of that. There’s some incredible tools now doing voice calls that are basically indistinguishable and often better, right? A lot of the live chat tools now are phenomenally good. So I think the trend, the most important piece that we all want when we’re hiring is someone that is, you know, we refer to it as like AI native. AI comfortable, AI skilled, etc., right? And for me, the skill isn’t just knowing how to use AI or LLMs, right? It’s knowing when to, right? And it’s knowing when to stop and knowing not to. So it’s almost like— it’s like having taste, right? Right. In a sense. And being able to know what good looks like. There’s a— forgive the phrase— but there’s a smell test, right? Right. Does this smell right? Right, because you get a stat, and I saw something recently that a very, very big accountancy firm— actually, someone included in a slide deck that was absolutely absurd. And you look at— it was talking about the growth rate of a particular country in the world, and you look at it and you go, that just doesn’t smell right, right? Yeah, I think it was like a Fortune 500 company that they included this deck in. So I think what we want is that human intelligence plus AI I think there are some roles that it can replace, but it’s going to increase the need for really great operators, right? So what you want in your agency is an incredible operations manager who is then getting tons of leverage from these AI tools, right? You’re going to be able to do more. So I think the— and again, same thing with if you’re a PPC specialist or an SEO specialist, like SEO is having a massive resurgence right now, right? Right. We had a bit of a lull for a year maybe where not that many people were hiring SEO specialists. Now we can’t get enough of them, right? We’re constantly doing it and searching people out because it’s kind of back to the old days of, you know, right, there’s opportunities to rank in, you know, very similar but different ways, right? So I think it’s that— it’s, yeah, low-level kind of roles, future’s not bright, I think. You know, it’s a bit like self-driving cars and truck drivers, things like that, right? And it’s going to be tricky in over the next 10, 20 years. But for agencies, I think it’s really about having really great people that yes, they’re AI fluent, right? And they’re learning, but they’ve got this little bit of discernment and taste about them so that they can use it wisely. 

Drew McLellan [00:42:18]: 

So that’s, that’s a great sort of topic to end our conversation on. So I hear a lot of agency owners say, my people are order takers. Like when I tell them to do something, they just do it, but they don’t think about what they’re doing. They don’t ask questions about what they’re doing. And they don’t have that discernment or that smell test of this is something’s not right. They just do what they’re being told to do. So again, even with clarity, they are robotic almost. Ironically, the humans are acting almost like AI, like they just do, you know, they just follow the prompt without questioning the prompt or the output of the prompt. So when you’re, when you’re identifying candidates for agencies, And you know that this sense of discernment and the ability to apply the smell test is critical. How do you test for that? How do you look for that in a person? And how do you see agencies encouraging that behavior once somebody’s been hired? 

Noel Andrews [00:43:24]: 

I think so. We test for it. I mean, I’d love to say we had some magical, you know, automated way, but in fact, the human side of recruitment has been more, you know, is now more important than it’s ever been. For sure. Right. All the AI slop, right? Yep. So really, it’s about the conversation, all right? It’s like the, you know, it’s like asking, like a child asking, why, why, why, right? So we’re really digging in. So tell me about that. Why did you do that, right? What made you do it that way? What was your thinking? And going, do they understand the process they’re going through, or are they just blindly chucking something in? So, you know, we test every candidate, and that is the most important stage of the hiring process. And yet that’s got harder because so many people are using AI to do the tests. And sometimes we want that, right? Because I want to know that they can use AI. But what I really want to know is, do they understand it? So then what we’re doing is layering on a lot of Loom videos, right? So if I’ve asked, I don’t know, an agency operations manager to, hey, just build me a project plan of how are you going to take over 3 client projects that are in various stages, they’re probably going to use AI for that. And I’m okay with that., and I’m going to say, right, now record me a Loom video talking me through it, right? Talk me through why you did it that way. Takes 15 seconds for me to know and for my team to know if they really understand it, right? So fast, you just know. So I think there’s that element of it. And then on the agency owner side of things, I think in a lot of cases the reason why their teams are order takers is because you’ve trained them to be order takers. Right? Yeah, a lot of us are control freaks, right? A lot of us have fears about delegation, right? What if they get it wrong, right? Right. Will they look after the client? And so again, I think it comes back to this, again, back to clarity, right? What do you want? What’s wonderful agency owner life for you, right? And if it is that you’ve got proactive team members that are really making decisions in the way that you’d make them, right, and potentially better than you— yeah, you’ve got to encourage that, right? You’ve got to set that expectation and help them and let them mess up as well, right? And so I think that if any agency owner out there has got someone that they’re like, I’m sure they’re capable of this but they’re not doing it, you know, work with them and say, hey, I’d really love it if you did this, how can I support you towards that, right? And change the expectation. Change the expectation from them coming to you, you know, 5 times a day to them coming to you once a day. And, you know, my team can ask me any question they want, I’m always there. But I want them to tell me what they think they should do. Right? Every now and again, but it’s very rare, every now and again, they might just genuinely not know. But the vast majority of the time, they can suggest something, and it’s normally right. And so then I can go, yep, thumbs up, do that. So I think it’s about creating the expectation that this is the level you want them to operate at. And the vast majority of people are much happier, and they love the opportunity to make some decisions and not have to come and check everything with you. Um, so it’s just being— it’s like a little check-in to say, have we created the order takers to be order takers? Because we’ve just held things on— held. 

Drew McLellan [00:46:30]: 

Things too close to our chests. Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. This has been a great conversation. If you owned an agency, what’s the one thing you would spend some time thinking about over the holidays really emphasize in that first team meeting in January to kind of set the tone for 2026? What would be sort of your, if you will, the theme of the year. 

Noel Andrews [00:46:56]: 

For you, and how would that show up? High standards. High standards, I think, across everything. And I think I would be encouraging people to think about what is high standards for you? Where are there areas that maybe are a little bit mediocre that you’d like them to be better? Because I think there’s, you know, how we do anything is how we do everything, right? So if you’re tolerating little typos, little glitches here and there, like, it just— I think it, it pervades. So I would be— I think the thing to think about over the holidays is what do you really want, right? Personally and agency-wise, like, what do you really want? What’s going to get you there? And I have lots of conversations with agency owners helping them to figure this out. They’re like, right, actually, you know what, I’d love to not work you have 60 hours a week. I’d love to work 3 days a week, but someone’s got to look after the clients. And, you know, how can I exit client delivery or operations or sales? That’s a lot of what I help people with. So I think I would be thinking about what do you really want for 2026, and how would you like life to be different in a year’s time, in 12 months’ time? And with your team, I think high standards and, you know, wowing clients Yeah, like, makes a huge difference. And often it’s not hard, right? I think there’s a— was it Masters of Scale podcast with Brian Chesky, uh, the old Airbnb one? He talks about the 11-star experience, right? What would that look like, right? Oftentimes you don’t need to do an 11-star experience. You can take some of those little things and do them really easily. So I think high standards is really powerful because actually, you know, the bar. 

Drew McLellan [00:48:32]: 

Is pretty low, right? I was gonna say, that’s the— I think the thing we forget is that the customer or client experience is a B at best normally. And so it just takes some minor tweaks to make it feel different to the end person, the client, or the team member if it’s internal, right? Yeah. Because I think it, I think that standards, I think it’s very hard to ask your team to have high standards externally if you’re not demonstrating that you’re. 

Noel Andrews [00:49:00]: 

Committed to doing that internally. Yeah, yeah, we all want to feel special, right? And there’s lots of opportunities with your team just checking in, you know, hey, how’s it going, right? You know, how are you really? You know, these kinds of things. So I think there’s just tons of opportunity to do— it’s not the big things. I think that’s the thing I want to emphasize, right? It’s not the big things that make the difference, it’s the little things. It’s the— for my team, it’s the birthday cards, the work anniversary cards, the little check-ins, right? They’re the things that actually contribute to you having the kind of high standards, high-performing team that you want. Turns into very, very happy clients, clients that stay with you, clients that refer you, and just, yeah, happy agency owner life. 

Drew McLellan [00:49:36]: 

Yeah, I agree, I agree. This has been a great conversation. If people want to learn more about the work you do, about JobRack, about how they can explore international team members, what’s the best way for them to, to track you down and to connect with you? 

Noel Andrews [00:49:53]: 

So best way is if people head to jobrack.eu/ami, so jobrack.eu/ami, I have put together a really, really comprehensive offshore hiring playbook that’s basically going to take you through everything you could possibly want to know. I’m also very happy to chat to any listeners that just want to, you know, maybe they’re deep into remote hiring and international hiring, or maybe they’re just thinking about it. Always happy to chat and help you out. Um, so yeah, head to jobrack.au/ami and, uh, we can get you going from there. And yeah, always happy to help out. 

Drew McLellan [00:50:23]: 

Yeah, awesome. I know that a lot of our, a lot of our members just feel that you’re such a great resource, not just, not just for finding the right people, although you certainly help them do that, but sort of helping them set up their agency for success when, when they’re going to hire internationally. And, you know, just having conversations around the observations that you have. So thank you for supporting them the way that you do. Thanks for being on the show with us again and being a part of the AMI community. 

Noel Andrews [00:50:50]: 

Super grateful for you, so thank you. Hey, no worries, Drew. 

Drew McLellan [00:50:54]: 

Really, really appreciate it. You bet. All right, so a little bit of homework from this episode. I would love for you to think about how you want things to be different by December of 2026. And what are— I think Noel’s right. I think it’s about the tiny tweaks. It’s the little things you could do. And it’s not 27 things. It’s a couple things that you could do consistently, and I’m under— I’m verbally underlining that word, that you can consistently do that reinforce sort of whatever that behavior is, that belief is you want to have on your internal team, which then translates to the client experience. So I think you start internally and then you, then you ask them to magnify that to your clients, to your vendors, your partners. And all of that. So that’s the homework from this episode is figure out really how do you want to show up differently in the new year and what are you going to do to make sure that you have clarity around that with your team? Again, that was sort of one of Noel’s watchwords, right? Is clarity. What, how do you make sure that there is no confusion on your team about what it is exactly you want your employees and your team members to experience? And what is it exactly that you want your clients to experience? So that’s your homework. I would love to hear sort of where you land, so feel free to ping me and let me know. Also, just want to remind you, huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they’re the presenting sponsor. So like I told you at the top of the hour, head over to whitelabeliq.com/ami. They’ve got a special deal if you’re a new client and makes me super happy when you just ping them and say thanks for sponsoring the podcast. Even if you don’t need a thing from them, you’re not buying a thing. Just letting them know that you’re grateful for the podcast, that you listen, that you find it valuable, and you know that they help make that possible would make me very, very happy. And last but not least, you know what? I, I’ve been doing this for a long time. We’re on episode, I don’t know, 550 or so. Which means I’ve been doing this for over a decade. I love having these conversations, and I only get to do it because you keep coming back and listening. If nobody listened, then obviously I wouldn’t get to keep doing this. So I am really grateful that we get to spend this time together. I know how busy you are so that you carve out 45 minutes to hang out with me while you’re walking on the treadmill or walking the dog, or I know I put on makeup with a bunch of you. So whatever we’re doing together, I am super grateful that you carve out the time and you share that time with me. So thank you for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you will too. So, all right, I’ll see you next week. Have a good one. 

Danyel McLellan [00:53:40]: 

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops. Coaching and consulting packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.