How agencies can best use freelancers and virtual employees with Nathan Hirsch

Speaker 1:

If you’re going to take the risk of running an agency, shouldn’t you get the benefits too. Welcome to Agency Management Institute’s Build a Better Agency podcast presented by HubSpot. We’ll show you how to build an agency that can scale and grow with better clients, invested employees and best of all, more money to the bottom line. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant. Please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, gang. Welcome back to another episode of Build a Better Agency here every week, we try and give you some new ideas to evolve your agency to where you want it to be. So, it serves you and your family, and your employees, and your clients in bigger and better ways. And I think you’re going to love this conversation today. It is around a topic or actually two topics that I know are burning issues in most agencies. The first one is going to be, we’re going to dig into the idea of finding and hiring good contract labor or freelancers when they don’t live in your neighborhood. When you’re not going to see them eyeball to eyeball, how do you find them, and how do you vet them, and how do you know they’re going to be good, and how do you create relationship with them that serves everybody and is a win-win. And also the whole idea of remote workers.

So, employees that don’t live in your neighborhood. For many agencies, this is a growing challenge. And many of you have put your foot down and said, not going to do it. And many of you have put your foot down and said that, and then six months later had to do it. So, we’re going to talk about all of that. So, let me tell you a little bit about our guest. So, Nathan Hirsch is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in remote hiring, and e-commerce. He’s been selling online for a really long time and has sold millions and millions, over $25 million worth of product through his e-commerce business. But now he is also the co-founder and CEO of freeeup.com. And there’s an extra E in that. So, it’s F-R-E-E-E up.com. The hands-on hiring marketplace, connecting hundreds of business owners with reliable pre-vetted remote workers.

So, they’re really working on redefining how businesses are able to hire remote freelancers online. You may already know about Nathan. You may have heard him on podcasts like Entrepreneur on Fire, Eventual Millionaire, and lots more. He talks all over the globe about online hiring tactics. And so we’re going to dig right into that. Nathan, welcome to the podcast.

Nathan Hirsch:

Drew, thanks so much for having me.

Drew McLellan:

So, we live in a whole new world of employees and contractors, don’t we?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah, it’s completely different. I mean, even from when I started my first company, when I was in college, I didn’t learn about remote workers until years later. And once I did it really opened up my eyes for all the potential. Because back in the day, when you could only hire people that would actually go to your office that you could see, you were really limited to the people in the towns and the towns around you. And you’re also competing with all the other business owners for that same talent. Whereas now when you’re hiring workers from the Philippines or India or across the US. You really get access to a lot of talent at market rates or below market rates, because you’re not competing with all those same businesses for the same talent that live in the same area.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and you are in many cases, affording someone the opportunity to work the way they want to work, which is from home or remotely.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I mean, that’s really what freelancers are. They’re running their own business just like I work, I own two remote businesses. I work in my pajamas a lot. I mean, they get to do the same thing. They don’t have those extra expenses, like gas money, and fancy clothes and stuff like that. So, you’re really giving them a lot of leeway to do what they love and really enjoy what they’re doing. And it can really lead to a positive experience for both parties.

Drew McLellan:

And I think agencies have been in some ways fast to this party and in other way is slow. So, I think agencies historically, especially small to mid-sized agencies. So, agencies with a few hundred employees or less. They’ve always had to rely on some sort of strategic partner somewhere along the way. So, back in the day, when I started in my career, you would rely on videographers and folks like that when you had to shoot a TV spot because many agencies, unless you worked for one of the big box agencies, they didn’t have that on staff. And so in some ways, a lot of people, a lot of the agency owners that are listening to us have grown up with the idea of outsourcing. But they’re more used to outsourcing to another company who does something they don’t do as opposed to augmenting their in-house staff with contract labor or in some cases, a remote employee.

So, go back to before the recession, a lot of agency owners really believed that they wanted their talent under the roof. That the work is collaborative. We work better when we’re all hunkered around a conference room together. And many agency owners pre ’07, ’08 were adamant that they were never going to have remote employees and that they were going to be “full service agency.” Meaning they had everything in house. But the recession forced them to rethink that because for many agencies just survival meant they had to really downsize, but they still needed to serve the clients that they kept. So, in the context of that, this is relatively new for most agencies and coming out of the recession, they kind of liked having the variable cost of a contractor or a remote hire as opposed to having a W2 employee. But now they have to figure out how to do it well. And I think that’s the state that we’re in today in agency land. Is that true for most of your clients?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. And I work with a lot of agencies and I think what some agencies don’t realize until they really get into the contractor field is a lot of times you need a backup plan. I mean, not everything, every project you do goes as planned. You have clients that want to push up deadlines. It might be unreasonable that you’re trying to make a really good impression of, and if an employee quits or you’re handling too many projects at once, you really need that extra manpower. So, I’m always encouraging clients to have some kind of backup plan, whether it’s having some graphic designers that you have on call or some web developers or some content writers, even if you don’t use them all the time, just building those long-term relationships so you have someone to go to in the worst case scenario.

And a lot of those times you can start using them more and more. You can get them more regularly. I’ve even had clients that buy them out and turn them into employees they liked them so much. And a lot of times it helps you get a really good employee, because you use that contractor for a while here and there and you know what they can deliver. So, there’s a lot of benefits to having the contractors, even if you’re not using them as consistently as some other agencies.

Drew McLellan:

So, one of the things that agency owners will say, when we talk about this topic is, yeah, I get it, but our clients are so last minute and our work is so last minute that I feel like I have to have someone in house because the client calls it three and we have to have it by six and the contractors have other work. And so we’re not a priority et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How do you help your clients bridge that gap? Because the reality is their clients aren’t going to all of a sudden ask for things two weeks in advance.

Nathan Hirsch:

It’s true. I mean, there’s pros and cons on both end. I mean, if you have an employee and they run out of work and then you’re paying them to do nothing. So, it’s the pros and cons of each one. Like I said, I kind of encourage you to, don’t have one graphic designer in your back pocket, start building a relationship with two to three, three to four. And then when you have a project, I mean, I have clients who have a Skype group of all their graphic designers, all their writers, all their Amazon experts, whatever it is. And whenever they have a project, they’ll throw it in there and be like, hey, can anyone complete this in the next 24 hours, in the next 12 hours, whatever it is. And someone will say, I can. And they get the project. So, there’s more creative ways now that we have Slack and Skype and Trello and all these different ways to organize these remote workers, to really have more control over the situation and give yourself that ability to not be pushed behind by some other client that’s assigned to work right before you did.

Drew McLellan:

That’s an interesting idea, the idea that they all know about each other, and you’re basically creating your own little marketplace.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. And the other thing to keep in mind is these freelancers are really growing their own business. They’re almost like mini agencies. So, a lot of freelancers are solo, but they’re also starting to see a lot of these freelancers that have assistance. They have their own team of workers whether they’re employees or contractors. So, if you find someone that’s reliable and you should still hold them to a high standard, regardless of whether it’s them or their team. A lot of times they can now account for those last minute projects whereas before they can’t. And I have a lot of freelancers in my network that they offer their service on the FreeeUp Marketplace, but they’re also clients as well. And they’re building a team, a combination of their own outside employees, outside workers, plus some FreeeUp workers. And they’re using that to really offer a great service to their clients. So, times have really changed from that solo freelancer that really came about not even five years ago.

Drew McLellan:

So, if an agency wants to begin to cultivate relationship with let’s just stick with graphic designers for now, just as an example. How does an agency do that? How do they begin to court or create a connection between graphic designers? So, they could eventually have a pool of three or four that allows them to do what we’re talking about. Sort of throw a project into the pit and see who wants to take it.

Nathan Hirsch:

So. It’s funny. I was talking at CEO Space last week and I sat down at a lunch table and I had a few different people come up to me and they were like, I keep getting screwed over when it comes to projects. I’ll hire this developer and they’ll say, hey, I can complete it in two months and at the end of that, it’s a mess. And I’ve wasted all my time and money, and I don’t trust hiring people anymore. And I really told them to kind of take a different approach, give people small projects, even if it’s not something very important, even if you have to pay them for it, give them a small test project here. Once they prove themselves a little bigger one, a little bigger one. So, that when that crunch time comes and you had that top-notch client that has a last minute deadline, and you need someone reliable you know who you can count on.

And the same thing goes, whether you’re hiring writers or graphic designers or developers, or whatever it is, really giving them small tests and having them build up that trust over time, even if it’s a project here and then three weeks later, it’s another one here will help you really gain a good understanding of who you can count on and who you can’t. And sometimes you might hire four graphic designers and only two of them really come through for you. But then you have two in your back pocket going forward that you can really count on in the future.

Drew McLellan:

And what do you believe is the most, I was going to say reasonable, but what’s the right way to work with a freelancer? Is it a hourly model? Is it a flat fee model? What do you think is a best practice around that?

Nathan Hirsch:

So, I started FreeeUp as an hourly model. I kind of prefer that because a lot of times things change. I deal a lot with e-commerce clients and agencies. And I mean, you never know when some software is going to change and it’s not necessarily the freelancer or the worker’s fault, but they deserve to get paid for their time. So, we set it up to any meetings, phone calls, all that stuff is billed time, and it’s pretty straightforward. And the workers can still give estimates and still get approval before working, which is similar to the fixed price model. But you’re also factoring in the other thing they can come about. With that said the freelancers are really running their own business. So, we give them the option to offer fixed prices when they want to. And a lot of that depends on the client as well.

I mean, you’re in to clients where the fixed price model works beautifully. They can agree to terms, the scope doesn’t change. You can offer it, both sides are happy, and you can continue doing work. Sometimes you’ll find clients that they are a little bit more unreasonable. Things come up and they don’t factor them in, or the freelancer might not be advanced enough to really define a scope and what it includes and what it doesn’t include. So, having that fixed price sometimes leads one party to be unhappy. So, I kind of encourage people, although they can do whatever they want to start off hourly. And once you build that relationship and know what a client’s really like and advance your freelancing career, then offer fixed price packages for things that you know both parties will be happy with the end result.

Drew McLellan:

I think that’s one of the reasons why agencies are so hesitant to get into bed with the idea freelancers is because typically they’re going to go to the freelancer and say, how long is this going to take? Or what’s it going to cost? They turn around and they give the client a number. And then it’s tough for an agency to go back, even though they’re often justified because the client has changed the scope or whatever, to get the client to agree on the number. So, a lot of times the agency ends up taking a haircut on working with the freelancer. I think that’s one of the challenges in the model.

Nathan Hirsch:

Agreed, and we try to minimize that as much as possible. We have a lot of best practices that we preach to the freelancers, and it’s really designed to have them earn more money and make clients happier. But one of those is just overestimating. So, if you’re giving a scope of a project, first of all, go in, do an evaluation, even if that’s just billed time, going through top to bottom, asking questions, getting all the information you need to give a good estimate and then overestimate and give an ETA and overestimate that ETA so that you’re always coming through on top. And that one time where something comes up and something might have gotten left out by accident, you still hit those deadlines. So, if you’re giving agencies quotes or estimates or deadlines, and you’re overestimating consistently, those agencies are still going to be able to turn a profit and a lot of times you’ll even make more money, which makes them happier and makes you use you over and over and over again.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So, in terms of confidentiality and what kind of documentation is appropriate and a best practice between an agency and a contract labor folks, to make sure that both sides are protected?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I mean, there’s always going to be risk. Even if you hire your best friend to sit right next to you, there’s always a chance that person does something stupid, jeopardizes your information, your client’s information. So, knowing going in that there is always a risk. We do everything possible to minimize that risk. I mean, I can only speak for the FreeeUp network and it’s very hard to get in. We take the top 1%. Once they’re in, they like being in, because we bring clients to them and they don’t have to apply to jobs all day. So, it’s in their best interest to keep clients information secure and keep the clients happy because if they do anything otherwise, they can get kicked out of the network and lose all their clients and their entire source of income. So, I mean, I’ve been doing this for eight years.

I’ve never had one security issue. I’ve been doing FreeeUp for eight years from my first business. I’ve been doing FreeeUp for two years and I’ve never had really any issue. And I’m sure that if I bill enough hours, eventually I will. But as a whole, you have to remember that these freelancers, these contractors care a lot more about their reputation, running their business than they do about stealing your information. And yes, we have an NDA that’s part of our agreement with the workers. You can definitely get your own and make sure it protects you and that it’s clear. But at the same time, are you really going to chase someone down across the Philippines to get this information back? Maybe you will, depending on how it is. So, a lot of it is looking at the big picture and where you hire the workers from, and focusing on what we’ll talk about in a little bit, which is how you actually vet these people, which is a lot more important than the actual agreement that you have in place afterwards.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I think it also the whole issue of copyright and who owns what, and all of those things needs to be carefully outlined to make sure that there is a chain of possession around work that’s created.

Nathan Hirsch:

Absolutely. I agree. When you’re coming to that stuff, it should be very clear who owns what? And a lot of times, if it’s not said, the contractor owns it, that IP or that copyright. So, if you are looking out for yourself and looking out for your clients, it’s a good idea to get that in writing and make it clear. And I mean, if you don’t want to go the full legal route and hire a lawyer, at least get it in a Skype confirmation or an email where they confirm it, and there’s some kind of written proof.

Drew McLellan:

I think, again, this gets back to making sure that you have your ducks in a row and have proper documentation. So, again, confidentiality, no competes, all of that sort of stuff have to be in place. And I would encourage agencies to make sure that A, they should be having that with their employees. So, all you have to do is modify that document. But B, it’s really critical to be paying attention to things like copyright. And if you have not listened to the podcast episode that I did was Sharon Toerek a while ago, that would be a good one to listen to.

She’s an IP lawyer that specializes in agencies and she’s got it all down, rock solid. So, go back and listen to that one if you’re feeling like your documentation is not in a great place. So, all right. So, let’s talk about vetting. So, there’s a bazillion freelancers out there, there’s your service, as I’m sure you know, there are other services plus that are out there on their own looking for work. How in the world as an agency know and figure out who’s good and what they’re good at, because not everybody’s good at everything of course?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. So, what I’m looking for is three things. I’m looking for skills, communication and attitude. If you think about it, almost every bad experience you’ve had hiring either comes down to their skills, weren’t what they said they were, they had a terrible attitude and they brought it down and they weren’t enjoyable to work with or they didn’t care. Or their communication was bad. You had to chase them down. You didn’t get updates. They couldn’t estimate hours, stuff like that. So, when you really break it down and you focus on these things, you have a lot better experience. For skills I’m looking for someone that has a track record of success. Someone with references, someone who really knows what they’re doing. That isn’t coming in as a newbie. I mean, we’re not a marketplace for newbies. We want the people with the talent.

For the attitude we’re looking for someone that has a positive attitude. That’s passionate about what they do. If they’re a graphic designer, they love graphic design. If they’re a bookkeeper, they love doing numbers and running the books. They care a lot more about what they’re doing than they do about the paycheck. And lastly communication. And for me, that’s the most important. People that’ll give updates. People you don’t have to chase down. People that if their house is burning down and they can’t get to your project, you’re at least getting a text message, a hundred percent of the time. And all that is very important. And a lot of times when you can’t vet one of those, it’s very important that you focus on the other two. You see that a lot of times with solo entrepreneurs, they need to hire someone for their Facebook ads.

And they don’t know anything about Facebook ads. And so they might not be able to vet the skill as well as someone that’s running a Facebook ad agency. But you can focus a lot more on that attitude and communication. And if you do a good job on vetting for those, you’ll normally run into an honest person, that’s going to tell you the truth about their skills. So, for me, I’m focusing on all three. And a lot of times when you have a bad experience, it’s because you were really just focused on the person that had the skills. But you weren’t focused on the person with that attitude and communication that went with it.

Drew McLellan:

So, I cannot draw a stick person and have it look like a stick person. But I, in theory, could grab a bunch of work and I could build an online portfolio. And I could say that I’m awesome at graphic design. Not that I’m suggesting people who are freelancers at graphic design have the lack of skill that I do. But there are people who hold themselves out to be more talented or skilled than they are. How do you guys vet that and how should agencies vet that?

Nathan Hirsch:

There’s a front line and there’s a back line. The frontline, the entire interview is really designed as a trap. You’re really looking for red flags. I mean, a lot of people think that when you’re interviewing someone, you’re looking for the right answers, which to me is backwards. People learn how to interview. I took a college class once on how to interview and it didn’t teach me how to do well at the job. It just taught me how to answer questions correctly. So, a lot of times when you’re looking for red flags, you should design your interview questions to pull out concerns on those three things. For skills, I like to ask people to rank their skills from one to 10, just as a baseline, because to start off the interview, that’s a good way for me to understand what they think they are.

And then as we dive deeper and deeper into it, I can usually tell if they’re telling the truth, based on those things. If they’re telling me, they’re a 10 out of 10, and they’ve been doing Facebook ads for three months, with one client. Probably something’s missing. And the same thing for five out of 10. It also helps me gauge their price. For the attitude, I’m looking for what they’re like in interviews. Do they seem like they care? Do they want to be there? Do they actually know what the FreeeUp Marketplace is all about? And for communication, I’m looking for obviously how well they speak English because that’s important. But other things like showing up on time and being able to communicate and articulate and answer tough questions. So, for me, I’m looking for those on the front end. And yes, there are still people that can get through.

Although if you do it properly, it will be a very low percentage. But once you get to the backend, that’s when the test really begins. Just because you’ve hired someone kind of like what I said before, it doesn’t mean that, all right, they’re hired, they’re in, they made it through, let’s give them this huge project. And I know that what I’m going to get. A lot of times it comes down to, okay, you made it through. You said, you’re going to do this. I’m going to hold you to those standards that you set out in the interview. Here’s a test project. Here’s another one. And really establishing what they can or cannot do. And a lot of times, by then, if you do it properly, you’re going to avoid any big issue of someone just completely lying off the face of the bat.

Drew McLellan:

Right. Yeah, I’m a firm believer in trust, but verify.

Nathan Hirsch:

That’s really what it’s all about. I mean, I go in thinking that people are going to tell me the truth, because normally they do. I mean, people know that they’re not going to get very far into my process, at least by telling lies. And there’s a time and a place for a five out of 10 worker, and there’s a time and a place for a 10 out of 10 worker. What’s important is I know who’s a five out of 10 and who’s a 10 out of 10 in terms of skill. And no matter whether they’re a five out of 10 or 10 out of 10, they still have that attitude and communication.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. That’s the non-negotiable. So, whether I need someone with a very basic skill level or somebody with a really sophisticated skill level, in all cases as an agency, I need them to communicate well with me and to do what they say they’re going to do when they say they’re going to do it.

Nathan Hirsch:

Exactly. And then from there, it’s about how you use people with different skill sets because there’s a time and a place for every different skill set.

Drew McLellan:

So, are there tools that you recommend, you talked about Slack or Skype or other things or Trello, are there tools that you recommend from an agency perspective? Let’s say I’m working with five or six different freelancers on different projects. How do we stay in touch and how do we keep everything organized?

Nathan Hirsch:

So, I’m a big fan of Skype. I actually made a video challenging anyone to be faster than me in Skype. But I’ve just gotten really good at it. It’s easy way for me to communicate. A lot of my clients have it, workers have it. So, it’s just easy right off the bat. A lot of my clients will use Slack. They’ll use Asana. They’ll use Trello. One thing that I do use for developers is JIRA that I’m a big fan of because managing developers is a whole nother animal. So, I mean, [crosstalk 00:23:02]

Drew McLellan:

A lot of agencies that love that for their web dev team. Yep.

Nathan Hirsch:

It’s honestly great. I mean, even though I’ve hired really well. I think the last part of me being coming really good at hiring was figuring out how to hire and organize and manage developers. And it really took JIRA to really take it to the next level.

Drew McLellan:

But you do think there should be some sort of … So, with Skype and correct me if I’m wrong, I think one of the things agencies want is an archive of the conversation or the agreed upon parameters or whatever. And in Skype, would you do that through messaging then?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah, I rarely do video calls, especially with international workers. But I mean, usually if I’m doing a video call on Skype, it’s a podcast or a client calling me for the first time. I like to keep everything in writing, because that’s just a great practice to have. And one thing about Skype is I have all these conversations going back. And I kind of have email to go with it. So, if it’s an important, I can get them to confirm in an email. But a lot of times it doesn’t really matter what you use as long as you’re consistent and you have the training that you provide. I mean, I’ve had clients that every week, they’re switching from one software to another- [crosstalk 00:24:10].

Drew McLellan:

It’s exhausting.

Nathan Hirsch:

Freelancer’s crazy, no one wants to work with them. They become less organized because of it. And for me, it’s whatever you’re comfortable with. You’re the client, you’re the agency, whatever works for you and you like doing, everyone else will adjust as long as you’re not jumping around.

Drew McLellan:

So, I want to flip the lever and start talking about remote employees. But before I do that, one thing we haven’t really done is, so help the listeners understand what FreeeUp is and how that tool might support them in their efforts to find good freelancers.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. So, FreeeUp is a marketplace for freelancers. Essentially, I’ve been selling online for eight years. I’ve hired hundreds of remote workers. I’ve used all the marketplaces out there and what I really didn’t like is you go on them, you post a job, you get a hundred applicants. You interview them one by one and it takes forever. And as a business owner, you don’t have that time. So, I wanted a faster, better way. So, what we do is we get hundreds of applicants every week. We vet them for you. We take the top 1%.

We add them to our network and it’s free to be a client. We make them available to the clients first come first serve. So, the clients love it because they put in a ticket telling us what they need right in our software. We fill those with one to three workers within 24 hours. You meet them, make sure you like them. It’s a fast hire process. You can click hire, and realistically be able to start with a worker within a few hours that you know, is pre-vetted. And we back it up on the back end. If a worker leaves in the middle of a project, for any reason, we cover all replacement, all retraining costs and get you a new worker right away. So, we save you a lot of time on the front end, and we protect you on the backend.

Drew McLellan:

So, how do you monetize it? Do you make money from the freelancers?

Nathan Hirsch:

So, the workers have an hourly rate that they set. We take 15% of that. So, if we tell you someone that’s 10 bucks an hour, you’re paying 10 bucks an hour. Like I said, they’re allowed to offer fixed prices if they want to, but most of them do hourly.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. So, from an agency perspective, there’s no fee to hire someone through you, the fee is paid on the provider end?

Nathan Hirsch:

Correct. I mean, there’s no minimums. If you hire someone for one hour a week for five bucks, you’re just going to get billed for that five bucks.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. All right. Awesome. All right. So, let’s take a quick break. And then when we come back, let’s talk about the conundrum that is remote employees. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast and you find that you’re nodding your head and taking some notes and maybe even taking some action based on some of the things we talked about. You might be interested in doing a deeper dive. One of the options you have is the AMI remote coaching. So, that’s a monthly phone call with homework in between. We start off by setting some goals and prioritizing those goals. And we just work together to get through them. It’s a little bit of coaching. It’s a little bit of best practice, teaching and sharing. It’s a little bit of cheerleading sometimes. On occasion you’re going to feel our boot on your rear end. Whatever it takes to help you make sure that you hit the goals that you set. If you would like more information about that, check out agencymanagementinstitute.com\coaching.

Okay, let’s get back to the show. All right. I am back with Nathan Hirsch and we are talking about, well we spent the first half of the podcast talking about hiring freelancers and how to do that better and how to vet them and all of that. And Nathan also has a lot of experience in terms of what it takes to be a remote employee in today’s environment. So, I want to shift our gears and talk about that because many of you are either beginning to put your toe in the water of that and maybe have your first remote employee, or you are fighting like heck not to do it, but you feel it coming on you. And you’re trying to figure out how to do it in a way that serves you and your business and your clients. So, Nathan, what are some of the danger areas that agency owners should be aware of when it comes to hiring a remote employee?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. So, when I’m looking for a remote employee, I’m really focusing on that communication. I mean, that’s really the thing where people have that bad experience because someone’s working from home and you don’t know what’s going on. They’re not communicating, they’re not updating you. They’re almost acting like a freelancer or a contractor because they have other things going on, even though they’re your employee. With that said, I have also seen a lot of benefits. I mean, I opened up an office and I got rid of that. It was a bad business decision because I added overhead to a business that didn’t need it. And I went back to remote workers and I had both contractors and remote employees. And what I’ve seen is a lot of the drama that you get in the office. And you avoid all of that. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s drama. People really focus on what they need to get done.

And then they had their personal life and whatever they’re doing outside of work right there at their fingertips. So, it has a good balance. The other side of it is you really want to figure out how to build that remote culture. I mean, that’s the biggest thing that it’s tough to do when you’re hiring these remote workers is maintain a sense of culture, a sense of purpose, a sense of teamwork. And so what I like to do is hold Monday morning meetings on Skype. And I recommend doing texts instead of video call. Because video call, a lot of times we’ll have issues and you’ll waste a lot of time trying to get everyone on the same page. But having these meetings, having updates, having numerous group chats, making everyone feel updated on what’s going on with the company so that they all are working towards a common goal. And a lot of people, once they move their employees to remote, everyone’s doing their own thing going in different directions. No one’s working as a team anymore. And that’s when they fall into issues.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, I think that’s the agency, I think there’s a hidden fear, which we’ll talk about in a minute. But I think the fear they talk about is that they will lose the ability to collaborate. And in the agency business, as you know, it is all about sort of pinging ideas off of each other to get to a better idea and all of that. So, how do you in a disparate workplace when a few or none of the people are in the same space, how do you create that sense of collaboration and teamwork?

Nathan Hirsch:

I mean, half battle is treating people well. Making sure that you appreciate them when they do something well and be direct when they’re not and giving them opportunities to succeed and putting them in position to do so. And the other half of that is just introducing people to other people on the team, making sure they’re working together, interacting, communicating, make sure that they know that they can go to you for questions and feedback and all that kind of stuff. And really making it that open environment where everyone is working together, everyone’s comfortable, but everyone knows that you’re working with a purpose. So, it’s kind of that balance between too comfortable and too rigid. But really figuring out that middle area where people are getting stuff done, but still enjoying working from home.

Drew McLellan:

How do you replicate sitting around a conference room table coming up with ideas for a client, for example?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s all about how you run a meeting. I go into a meeting with set things I want to give out, announcements. I go in with problems that we need to solve. I make it so that when we’re running a meeting, everyone has to contribute. No one can just kind of sit there being quiet. And a lot of times you’ll get more interaction because everyone’s remote, people don’t feel scared to speak up or say what’s on their mind. And you really can have these really great Skype chats, I use Skype, but you can use whatever you want, where everyone’s involved. Everyone’s sharing ideas. You have this track record of everything that everyone said. So, people can go back if people fall behind or they miss what someone said, they can always go back and see it. So, to me, I’ve gotten really good. And I see a lot of benefit in having these meetings via Skype, even though there might be 20 people in that meeting and they’re scattered all around the world.

Drew McLellan:

So, again, you’re doing this in the messaging space, not the audio or video space.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. All in the messaging.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Interesting.

Nathan Hirsch:

And a lot of the times I’ve seen my clients that have gotten really good at hiring remotely. That weren’t necessarily that way when they first came to FreeeUp is because they’ve gotten better at using Skype, better at chatting on Skype. And they didn’t insist on doing those video and voice calls every single time.

Drew McLellan:

Well, at a certain point in time, depending on how big the team is, there aren’t a lot of tools that will allow you to have 25 people on a video.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I’m going to keep promoting Skype. I’ve had a lot of success with it and the clients that have listened to me and kind of taken my advice have seen a huge difference.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So, you talked about sort of the traits that you’re looking for in a freelance partner, how are those different or the same as what you’re looking for if you’re hiring a remote employee? What are the skills? And so here’s the hidden fear that agency owners have that they may or may not voice is, I’m going to hire someone and instead of working, they’re going to do their laundry or whatever. How do you hire knowing that someone is self disciplined enough to do the work when they’re supposed to do the work. And be around, especially again, given that the work we do is not in a silo by ourselves. If I need to talk to somebody, I need them around now. So, how do you promote that and how do you interview for that?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. So, I mean, the difference between the contractor and the employee is a contractor, I’m assuming that they’re going to have other clients. I’m assuming I’m not their number one priority. I also know going in that I’m really hiring them for their skills, their expertise to bring to the table. Whereas the employee, I can spend … whereas the contractor I’m hiring them and putting them through tests here, test there. The employee, I’m really putting them through training and company policies and orientations and stuff like that. So, for me, my test, for employees, I have that extra test because I’m putting them through training and working with them one-on-one. But then on top of that, that first one to two weeks is really for them to show me what they got.

I mean, that old phrase to hire slowly fire quickly. It even gets enhanced when you’re dealing with remote employees, because it’s so easy to either replace them or see where they went wrong and what kind of production you’re getting, because all that other stuff besides the work just doesn’t exist. So, for me, I’m holding them to incredibly high standards. I’m using that initial time to really test them and making sure that they can deliver on things that they can. But I almost treat them the same way as I am contractors. I’m assigning deadlines, I’m assigning tasks. I’m making them provide me with updates so that I know what’s going on. And I’m quick to make those decisions.

Drew McLellan:

I think one of the shifts that agency owners have to make when they add remote employees into the mix is that they have to get more outcome-based in terms of evaluating whether or not an employee is pulling their weight.

Nathan Hirsch:

I agree. And I’ve also seen a lot of agencies that wanted an employee, but what they really wanted was a contractor because they realize that, all right, yes, I had a lot of work to get done and the employee comes in and they’ll get all this stuff done, but then a month then they’re like, all right, I’m caught up. What I really wanted was the contractor that could work part-time or get stuff done for me. And now I have this employee with all this overhead.

Drew McLellan:

And I have to fill their day.

Nathan Hirsch:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah. So, in terms of outcome based things. So, I find what happens is that the agency owner begins to make that shift with the remote employee. And that begins to change the expectation, even for the in-house employees, that everything becomes more outcome-based as opposed to you showed up at eight and you didn’t leave till six. So, you had a good day.

Nathan Hirsch:

For me, that’s almost better. I’m an outcome based person. At the same time it all comes back to culture. I mean, the times when it clashes and the remote employees and the internal employees start to look at it differently is when people don’t feel like they’re part of a team, but they’re getting that same benefits, the same compensation. So, for me, it’s making sure that there’s no difference between how I treat the internal versus external. At the same time I’m holding both of them to incredibly high standards.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and you mentioned culture, and I think that’s the other worry that agency folks have is that for many agencies, a big part of the workplace and what makes them sticky and why people stay with them. And part of what they’re proud of in terms of the business that they own is the culture they’ve created inside their office. And I know a lot of agency owners worry about how do you translate that to remote employees? So, do you have some thoughts around that?

Nathan Hirsch:

It can be done. I know a lot of people think that he can’t. I mean, I’m a big proponent of building remote teams and having a great culture. And it really starts from the top and trickles down. If you’re treating people well and you have that mentality, whatever your culture is, because my culture might be different than yours. You might have more of a cutthroat culture and mine might be more relaxed, which is fine. But it needs to really trickle from the top down. Your assistance, the people under you need to have that same mentality.

They need to treat the people below them the same way who needs to treat the remote workers the same way. And it really comes down to the hiring process too. If you’re running a cutthroat business, and that’s your culture, and you start hiring remote workers that are more warm and fuzzy, that’s not going to work out and vice versa. So, making sure that the culture trickles all the way from the top down and making sure you’re hiring people that actually fit your culture and not trying to change them. It goes a very long way towards keeping that culture over time, as you get bigger and bigger.

Drew McLellan:

I am a big proponent of if you’re going to have remote employees, they have to spend a certain amount of time at the mothership, wherever that mothership is. Or if there isn’t a mothership, if you’re a virtual agency, you have to make the investment to bring these people physically together on occasion so that they can create connections. We all create connections online today, but it’s different than sitting across the table from someone, or bowling with someone, or drinking with someone or whatever it may be in an agency. It’s probably all three of those things. How do you feel about that? How critical is it, do you believe, that the remote folks get together either with the non remote folks or if your entire team is remote, that you bring everybody together?

Nathan Hirsch:

It’s probably pretty important, it’s not something that I’ve done since I’ve bought my businesses remote. Although for me, what I really like about having the preop network is I have freelancers in the network from all over the world. So, when I travel, I like to meet with them. I kind of make it open so that people can meet with me when they want. When they’re in Orlando, I’ll take them out to dinner or whatever it is, and get on the same page and talk to them. I’m taking a trip to the Philippines in March where I’m going to meet a lot of my assistants. One of it, which I’m actually their godparent or the godparent to their kid. So, I figure out ways to build these relationships, even though they are remote. And I know there definitely is some benefit of bringing them into the office, if it makes sense to have the meet the team and get up to date and up to speed. But it’s not something that’s realistic for my particular situation.

Drew McLellan:

Well, because you’re working with people from all over the globe.

Nathan Hirsch:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. And I think probably for most agency owners, their remote employees are probably going to be in the same country that they’re in. Whereas- [crosstalk 00:39:04]

Nathan Hirsch:

Most likely the same state even.

Drew McLellan:

Maybe. But they’re freelancers might be scattered all over the globe. But it’s highly unlikely that they would have employees, just because of employment law and taxation and all that other stuff, that somebody’s going to be from a different country than they are. So, it’s probably more realistic for many of them, if they’re a W2 employee, to be able to bring them together on occasion.

Nathan Hirsch:

Agreed.

Drew McLellan:

So, I’m completely diverting here for a second, but I’m assuming when people come to visit you in Orlando, you’re not only taking them out to dinner, but you take them to Disney World.

Nathan Hirsch:

So, I’m not a big Disney World person.

Drew McLellan:

Oh, Nathan.

Nathan Hirsch:

I know. I also live kind of far away from Disney World. I’m about as far away from Disney World as you can be while still being in Orlando.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. So, next time I’m in Orlando, I’m going to reach out to you and I’m going to change that opinion.

Nathan Hirsch:

Sounds great.

Drew McLellan:

So, I’ve been to Disney World at least once a year, since it opened in 1971.

Nathan Hirsch:

I’m terrified of heights so, good luck getting me on a roller coaster.

Drew McLellan:

Fair enough. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. All right. So, back to remote employees. Sorry, guys. You know I can’t resist the moment to talk about Disney. How do you evaluate? So, again, typically in an in-office environment, you would have face-to-face meetings with employees, you would be doing maybe quarterly reviews. How is that different or is it exactly the same do you think for remote employees? What are your best practices around reviewing and coaching remote employees?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah, you have to treat it the same. I mean, you have to have different reviews. You have to include them in the meetings. You really have to make it as similar as you possibly can on the employee side.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. One of the things that I’ve noticed, I’m curious if you’ve seen it too. One of the ways for agencies anyway, that remote employment really works well is when someone has been onsite for a period of time, they’ve been a regular old employee. And for some reason, a spouse gets transferred or something else happens. They have to move or they choose to move. And now they’re going to become a remote employee. Have you seen that work well?

Nathan Hirsch:

Honestly, no. I mean, a lot of times that’s when you start seeing that step backwards and they’re not as focused. The people that are used to being in the office sometimes can’t handle it. And it obviously depends on the person. I think the better remote freelancers, even the better remote contractors are the people that are used to it. That’s what they want to do. They want to freelance full-time. They want to be a remote employee full-time and they’re a hundred percent dedicated to that rather than just doing it because something happened. And a lot of times you’ll even see something that we try to stay away from is the people that are really used to that employee mindset. The people that have had the job for the past 10 years, where they go into the office and then one day they’re like, oh, I want to try out freelancing.

I want to test it out. And a lot of times you don’t know what you’re going to get and you can go either direction. So, we’re really looking for people that if they’re the contractor that they been doing this for a while, they’re build up a client base. This is what they’re all in doing. And on the employee side, what I recommend doing is looking for someone that has done it before. That understands the pros and cons of working remote, because there are people that can do it for a little while and go crazy, just hanging out with them and their dog all day. So, really getting people that know that this is what they want to do and they enjoy doing it. And this is the way that they’re productive and get work done.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I do think that there are some types of people who need to be around other people, like physically around other people. And others are just fine with having online contact or email contact, or phone contact. And that gives them enough people touches that they’re good.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I mean, for a while when I was working remote, when I graduated college, I went a little crazy. Just working from home by yourself, especially running an Amazon business where I wasn’t necessarily interacting with all the people that I’m interacting with at FreeeUp. It was a big change from being in college and I’ve kind of adapted to that. I had an office and then I went back to remote and I mean, there’s different best practices that you can use over time. But if you’re used to going into the office and that’s really where you thrive, it’s tough to make that change.

Drew McLellan:

So, do you find that most of the, either the freelance, the contractors, the freelancers, or the remote employees, are most of them choosing to work at home as opposed to like a shared office space or anything like that?

Nathan Hirsch:

Most of them, yes. There are a few that do the shared office or some of them even have a mini office. Because even these freelancers, like I said before, are running their own business. So, they might be even more, they might be doing freelance for different companies, but they’re really just a mini agency. So, I would say, that’s the exception, not the norm. Most people are getting into freelance because they want that comfort of home.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, it really all boils down to A, interviewing incredibly well. And probably both on the employee side and the remote worker side, the freelancer trial and error. So, doing some testing. So, back to what we said, trust, but verify. Doing some testing and some baby steps before you go all in.

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. I would even add a step before that, identifying what you want. The biggest mistake people make when hiring is, they didn’t really figure out what they wanted. And so they think, hey, I’ll know it when I see it. And that rarely works out. I mean, you should identify what does your perfect worker look like? What skills do they have? What background? What kind of schedule? What kind of availability? What kind of communication and attitude do you need? What makes sense for your business at this time? And a lot of people, they miss that and they just kind of post a job thinking, hey, I’ll just interview until I find someone. So, you can take that first step and really map out what your perfect contractor, what your perfect employee looks like. So, you know what you’re looking for? You’ll have a lot more success.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Start with the end in mind. Seems simple and yet oftentimes that’s a step that it gets skipped.

Nathan Hirsch:

It’s overlooked all the time.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah. No. Really great advice. So, as we’re wrapping up the conversation, what are a parting thought or a, hey, don’t forget that you want agency owners to make sure that they have before we wrap up?

Nathan Hirsch:

I recommend diversifying when you’re hiring. I mean, yeah. A lot of people, they fall into that trap. They find that really good marketing person or that really good assistant, and they start loading them up with work. And then when it comes crunch time that person leaves or gets sick or whatever it is. And all of a sudden they have all their eggs in one basket. I mean, even if you find that one good graphic designer, try to find a backup, try to find a backup for that. Continue building relationships. Don’t just post jobs when you need something. And don’t just pile stuff on to one person. Really try to spread it out and build lots of good relationships with different people that can help your business over time.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. You’re right. That’s probably a really common mistake. I find somebody, they’re really good. So, instead of 10 hours a week and I’m giving them 20 and then I’m giving them 30 and pretty soon they’re overloaded. And I don’t have any capacity as opposed to having three or four people each doing 10 hours a week. And now at any given moment, if I need somebody in a crunch, now I have a much better shot of one of the four of them having room on their calendar to help.

Nathan Hirsch:

Exactly. I mean, I try to diversify in all aspects of my business. And hiring is no different.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, no. That’s really good advice. If folks want to learn more about FreeeUp or follow you, what are the best places for them to find you?

Nathan Hirsch:

Yeah. So, pretty easy to contact. If you go to FreeeUp.com with three E’s, my calendar’s right at the top. I’d love to talk to you about your agency and your business of how we can help. You can sign up as a client for free. You can check out our online hiring mastermind group, where we post a lot of advice about hiring. You can obviously check us out on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those places. And you can add me on Skype or email at [email protected]

Drew McLellan:

Awesome. This has been great. I knew that you would have all kinds of tips and tricks and you absolutely delivered. Thank you so much.

Nathan Hirsch:

Thanks, Drew.

Drew McLellan:

Believe it or not, that wraps up another episode of Build a Better Agency. Man, the time goes by quick. Love sharing this content with you, and I love spending the time with you. So, thanks so much for listening and sticking all the way to the very end. And for those of you that did stick around to the end, I’ve got a special new twist for you. So many of our podcast guests have books or other things that really expand upon the information and knowledge that they share with us during the podcast. And so we’ve reached out to them and we’ve asked them if they would like to give away some of their books or whatever classes, whatever it may be. And we’re going to throw some AMI things in there as well. We’re going to have some AMI swag and we’re going to actually give away some workshops.

So, all you have to do to be in all of the drawings, you only have to do this once, is go to agencymanagementinstitute.com\podcastgiveaway. So, again, agencymanagementinstitute.com\podcastgiveaway. Give us your email address and your mailing address and every week you will be eligible for whatever drawing we’re doing. And we’re going to change it up every week. So, we’re going to have a lot of variety and we will pop an email to you if you are the lucky winner. You can also go back to that page and see who won last week and what they won. So, you can see what you’re in the run for. So, if you have any questions about that or anything agency related, you know you can reach me at [email protected] and I will talk to you next week. Thanks.

Speaker 1:

That’s all for this episode of AMI’s Build a Better Agency, brought to you by HubSpot. Be sure to visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to learn more about our workshops, online courses, and other ways we serve small to mid-sized agencies. Don’t miss an episode as we help you build the agency you’ve always dreamed of owning.