#184: How To Successfully Communicate With Your Remote Workers In A Virtual Team

Speaker 1: If you wanna learn more about effective management, head over to madsingers.com and sign up for my free management training.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Mads Singers Management Podcast from madsingers.com, where entrepreneurs and business

Speaker 1: Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the Mads Singers Management Podcast. Today, I'm joined here by Omar Senhong. Welcome, Omar.

Speaker 2: It's great to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Excellent. And, Omar, you are roaming around the sort of remote world of employment. But before we go into all this interesting conversation, would you mind giving the audience a little bit of background to who you are and how you ended up where you are right now?

Speaker 2: Sure. I, was an English teacher actually for, over thirteen years. I was an English teacher and, had a department for a high school and university later on in my career. I did that for thirteen years. So, this is like I started my career in 2002.

Speaker 2: And while I was, you know, teaching and, getting my experience and working in this job, I was building businesses on the side. I discovered the Internet. I basically learned by doing and by making lots of mistakes and having the comfort of a paycheck to kind of fall back on when I when I totally do the wrong thing in my business as I was learning. But, eventually, I decided to leave education, leave my job, and become a full time entrepreneur. I started a business and a podcast called the $100 MBA, the $100 MBA show, which is a daily business lesson every single day on our podcast.

Speaker 2: And we've grown that to a a pretty popular podcast with over a 120,000 listeners every single episode. And we're able to kind of serve our audience by helping them with, I felt like, lessons that we don't really learn in books. Things like how to have that tough conversation when you have to fire an employee or, you know, you only have $2,000 this month to spend on marketing. What do you spend it on? So I I wanted to kind of fill in those gaps with the podcast, and that was that was the the genesis of the idea.

Speaker 2: Also in 2014, I started my own software company called Webinar Ninja, which is a webinar software for creators and coaches, helping them teach what they know and be able to grow their business through live and automated webinars. And we've grown that company, and a lot of the lessons I teach on the podcast come from the challenges of building a software company and running a remote team. And, you know, we we were doing the remote thing since 2013 before everybody kinda had to with COVID. But, you know, it's not always as people are learning, it's not always a bed of roses. It's not super simple all the time.

Speaker 2: There's a there's new challenges as you run your remote team. So growing that company has been a a great journey and, for me, a great educator to level me up as an entrepreneur and become better every day.

Speaker 1: Love it. Love it. Yep. I have been running remote business about as long as you have, so that's definitely yeah. Not always a better process, as you say.

Speaker 1: But I think, fundamentally, what I've seen over the years is that if you don't have good management, then running a remote team becomes a lot, lot harder. Right? Because when when you're running a remote team, it really comes down to good management to a large degree. Whereas when you're in a physical business and people are showing up every day, a lot of the time, happens is that stuff happens and and sort of conversation happens even without you needing to force them. Right?

Speaker 1: Whereas in a remote world, you definitely need to look at things slightly different sometimes. So yeah.

Speaker 2: I definitely agree with that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Omar, let's talk a little bit more about all this remote team. Right? So how do you manage a remote team differently?

Speaker 1: Like, how do you look at managing a remote team versus managing a physical team, and what is the differences as you see it?

Speaker 2: It has a lot to do what you said before. When you're in person, when you're in an office together, there's a lot of communication that happens, you know, just by proximity, just by being around, just by walking around. You know, when I was a manager in the university I was working at, just walking around my presence in the teacher's room or in the office had an effect. I don't have that liberty when I'm, you know, managing a remote team. So in my opinion, running a remote team is all about communication.

Speaker 2: You there's no such thing as overcommunication. You have to make sure that there there is a lot of communication that's happening, not just you talking, but them talking as well. One of the best examples or, I guess, analogies I can give is, like, if you're a coach. You know, I play basketball. This is my my sport of choice.

Speaker 2: And imagine a basketball coach would just talk to the team before the game and then then doesn't say anything to them throughout the game. Like, that just go out and play. Just do your job. You know? Like and that's how a lot of people run the remote teams.

Speaker 2: They're like, they're have once once a week or maybe once a month a meeting, and they say, okay. These are our targets. These are our goals. Go get them. Let's go win.

Speaker 2: And they don't really do anything in between those meetings. And really what you need to do as a leader in our remote team is be the coach, is really to coach them through each play, through each time because there's gonna be seasons in your businesses. There's gonna be times where it's gonna be easy and times this is gonna be challenging, and sometimes you're gonna have to make some changes on the fly. And you need to communicate these changes and make sure they got it and they understand why and they're on board. You have to sell it to them.

Speaker 2: So it's a lot like coaching. It's a lot like making sure you tailor your message to each person. You know, a coach, they don't just talk to everybody. They pull people aside. They take one player aside.

Speaker 2: Listen. We need you to do this. You know? And that requires you to do that, and a remote team is to have one on ones and to and to make sure that you're giving the right instruction to the right person in the right way because every individual is different. So to a lot of people, this is a lot of communication.

Speaker 2: Like, they're not even used to this. But this is what's this is the trade off. In order for you to have an efficient team and be able to motivate them and be able to get things done efficiently, it requires you to really overcommunicate. And in fact, we say in our team, it's impossible to overcommunicate. And most of the people that we don't end up hiring or we don't keep on our team, like, we have to usually, when we hire somebody, we put them on a little bit of trial in the beginning to see if they're a good fit for us.

Speaker 2: And those who don't make it are those who have a hard time with this. If they don't ask questions, if they're not communicating with team members, if I don't see them going back and forth in our chats and in our meetings, that's a that's a red flag for us. Like, you're not gonna be able to do well here because there's no way you know everything and you have no questions and you're new here. You know? So communication is really the key and and a whole lot more, but that that's where we we start.

Speaker 1: Yep. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So what what what kind of communication process? Like, you you mentioned talking to people one to one so Right.

Speaker 1: One on one and so on. What what what does your communication process actually look like?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So we have a team that's spread around the world, so different time zones. It's not very easy to kinda have a synchronous communication. So most of our communication, I would say 90% of our communication is asynchronous. Meaning, everybody just, you know, will communicate in their own time, in their own time zone.

Speaker 2: And we use a tool called Basecamp, which is a project management tool. And one of the things that we do in Basecamp is we have what's called daily check ins. And what a daily check-in is is basically there's a question that gets prompt to each person on our team and every department that says, ask what what they worked on yesterday, what they're gonna work on today, and if they have any blockers, if there's anything they need from anybody is to put it into that. So they get an automated message where they have to answer these things. And that way, the manager on the team, myself as a founder, I can go to anybody's check-in for that day and see what they're doing.

Speaker 2: I can get a quick glance and see if they have any questions and be able to jump in and and and help out or give encouragement or even just, give a nudge of like, hey. You may wanna check out this resource of this blog post or speak to this person on the team. They have experience with this. So this allows everybody to take responsibility. This is very important.

Speaker 2: You have to say, you're responsible for the communication, not me. I'm not gonna sit there and nag you and ask you every day, hey. I'm gonna automate this. You're gonna be responsible for communicating to the team that this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm working on.

Speaker 2: So that's just one tool that we do to make sure that there is general communication happening. The other thing is that there are positions in our job that can't be asynchronous. Like, for example, customer support. They they have a shift, and they're answering the support queries and helping customers. And and and in that case, we have a couple of things that we do is we have, like, a a general chat where everybody kinda checks in and, hey.

Speaker 2: Good morning and things like that. And there's some fun and banter, but also some questions as they're going through their work and figuring things out. We also literally just have a open Google Hangouts. It's it's just a Google Hangouts room. We call it the VO, which is a virtual office, where basically everybody just jumps in when they're on shift in the virtual office so they can feel like they're together in in a in a space.

Speaker 2: And, they can of course, everybody's kind of muted by default, but then they can unmute to ask a question or maybe say, hey. I I gotta step out for a second. Can you cover for me? I'll be back. You know, that even that is good communication just to get make sure that people feel like they can lean on each other as teammates.

Speaker 2: And even though they're working at different parts of the world, they feel like they know these people. The other thing is that it's important that even though we run a remote team, we do believe in the importance of meeting in person. So at least once a year, we like to do a team retreat where we gather everybody up from everybody on the team, and we meet at a location. And this is, like, I would say 50% of our goal with the team retreat is, one, is to get things done that we just simply can't do efficiently remotely. What do I mean by that?

Speaker 2: Is there are things like strategic planning, goal setting. You could do this on a call. You can do this remotely, but it's a different experience in person. It's a different vibe. It's also a different bonding experience where you learn what people's values are, what they are interested in, what they wanna put their hand up for.

Speaker 2: So we kinda like to do activities like that as well as team building activities, which are like games and fun and things like that so that people can feel like they're part of something greater than themselves and not just all these individuals working on a project. And then the other half of our goal with the team retreat is to just make people feel valued. Right? You know, a lot of people don't realize that most people will love their job and for for a reason other than salary or compensation. If you look back, if you ever had a job before, if you weren't an entrepreneur in your life, you look back here, the best jobs you had, it really had nothing to do with how much you're getting paid.

Speaker 2: Has a lot to do with being appreciated, with being given autonomy, given the freedom to grow, getting the the the chance to kinda contribute to the company. And I always have that in the back of my mind that that is what makes a great job, and I wanna give that to my team. And we try to do that with our team retreats is give them a chance to contribute, have fun, be recognized, rewards, gifts, parties, that kind of thing. So those are some of the things we do to make sure that we keep the team communicating.

Speaker 1: Love it. Love it. Yep. That was that was very detailed, and that's that's exactly what you need. Right?

Speaker 1: Like, having a good structure for communication, making sure I mean, my my number one thing is always doing one to ones on a weekly basis with the people that report to me. Right? And that's I I think that's, for me, the the number one communication process. Because when when you are not physically next to someone, when you are talking to someone on a at least on a weekly basis, they don't feel lost. Right?

Speaker 1: They don't feel like they're just out there doing something on their own, and nobody cares. Right? They yeah.

Speaker 2: So Yeah. I agree. And and, you know, we try to make a habit to do it as frequent as possible one on ones. One of the things that has helped us tremendously over the years is when we hire somebody new on our team this is something I I thought it was very strange. Like, why didn't I do this before?

Speaker 2: This makes total sense. But, basically, when somebody comes on our team, we say to them, this is how you win at this company. This is this is what you have to do to be successful. And a lot of people don't actually give that to their new employee. They just say, here's a job description.

Speaker 2: This is what you're gonna do. We're gonna put you on onboarding. We're gonna train you. But they don't really kinda sum it up and say, you'll have a job for life here. You're gonna be a rock star here if you do this.

Speaker 2: And a lot of people just need that direction. People forget that the reason why they're working at your company and are are in a job is because they want direction. Right? They're not they're not entrepreneurs like you where they they don't want any direction, and they're just like, okay. Just tell me the outcomes.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna go and get it. No. What you have to tell them is like, hey. Like, what we tell them is like, hey. If you work hard, if you show that you care about the customer, if that if you are willing to grow and learn and you're getting better month over month, you'll always have a job here.

Speaker 2: So they understand that they have to have a grow growth mindset. They have to be flexible. They have to show that they care because I can't I really can't train that. I can't train somebody to care. Right?

Speaker 2: So either you carry it on. So that's a choice they have to make. So if they don't care, there's nothing I can do to make them care. And that at that point, I can say, okay. We're not a good fit.

Speaker 2: So I try to give them a formula and say, hey. If you if you wanna be successful here and have a job for life, this is what you have to do. And that that just gives them, like, a north star, and they're like, okay. Alright. I get it.

Speaker 2: This is why you hired me. This is what my job is really. You know? Like, yes. Maybe I'm a customer service agent or maybe I'm a engineer or maybe I'm in marketing.

Speaker 2: But, really, my job is is to make sure your customers feel rewarded. They feel like they're recognized, and that I'm giving, you know, everything I can to make sure that I fulfill my duties. And then they get it. They're like, okay. That makes it clear.

Speaker 2: And then now they know how to win the game. Right? They go to work. It's like, how do I win today? Okay.

Speaker 2: I gotta do those things. I gotta make sure that I emphasize these things. And that really helped.

Speaker 1: Yep. Excellent. I I like that a lot. I like that a lot. What about actually finding these employees?

Speaker 1: Like, how do you go about hiring, and how do you go on about finding these people that that you bring into your team?

Speaker 2: That's a great question. And it's because for a very long time as an entrepreneur, I used to beat myself up because of how long it took me to hire somebody. And it's not because I was, like, analysis paralysis. Should I hire? No.

Speaker 2: I'm talking about the actual hiring process would take sometimes a couple of months, three months to get somebody on board. And it's because I really wanted to make sure we had the right person because it's making the wrong hire, and I've done this more than once. Right? I'm I'm not too ashamed to to admit it, but it is very it's a very costly mistake because not only are you going to be wasting a salary on somebody that maybe is not perfect for the job, but they can also cause serious damage to your company, your reputation, to your actual customers, maybe your customers' customers even if you're in that kind of business model. But the point is is that, like, you're giving the keys to the castle.

Speaker 2: You're giving them access to your livelihood and the way you earn money. And that's a big responsibility. You can't just give that to anybody and say, oh, see how it works out. You know? So what I would first say to anybody is that before we talk about, like, the process, like, give yourself permission to take your time in choosing the right person and have a procedure.

Speaker 2: The the the next thing is that you have to realize you have to know for sure who you want. You have to be very clear about this is the type of person I'm trying to hire in this position, whatever that position is. And this is why I say that the the best thing you could do to find the best hire is to take a bit of time and a bit of effort to write a great job description. A lot of people, they just use a template or they look at other job descriptions and try to rewrite it for their own their their own job description. No.

Speaker 2: You don't have to follow a formula. You can literally just say in your job description like we say. It's like, hey. Is this you? We're looking for somebody like this.

Speaker 2: This is what you what life is like if you work for us. This is what we we provide. Right? And, you and this is how you apply. And really working on that allows you to attract the right people.

Speaker 2: You know? And we just flat out say, hey. If you don't like solving big problems, if you don't get a high from from, you know, fixing a bug that took a week to figure out, then you're not the right engineer. We don't need you. Like, you you need to look somewhere else, because that's what the reality of the job is.

Speaker 2: I don't wanna attract somebody and try to, like, swindle them, bait and switch them and say, like, this is a great place to work and free lunches and boat. No. This is the reality. And if that's your jam, then you're gonna love it here. And that means you're you're allowing yourself to get the best possible chance of getting somebody that is a good fit.

Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of different kind of people out there, and you need to find the person that is right for you. So writing a great job description and spending the time to make sure that, hey. Is this, like, straightforward? Is this making sense? Is this actually the person I want, or am I just trying to be professional and write, like, some sort of job description that looks like other ones?

Speaker 2: So that's the first step. The other step I I I would say is creating a wherever you post, whether it's onlinejobs.ph or if you go to, you know, we work remotely. There's all these all these job boards, especially for remote jobs. And now all jobs are pretty remote. You can post anywhere.

Speaker 2: But wherever you post, you should definitely not use whatever platform's filtration process or application process. We don't like to use whatever that platform is using because it's not good enough for us. We wanna control the filtration, and what we do is we just basically create a Google Form. We create a Google Form where we ask real life questions that they need to know the answers to to be even qualified to to have this job. So, for example, we will create, a question in the Google Form if they're gonna be a customer service agent, an actual real question that a customer would ask and say, hey.

Speaker 2: Use our help docs and see if you can answer this question. Right? Why am I gonna waste my time and my team's time on doing interviews on people that don't even make the effort to look at my help docs before they even, apply for this job. So I actually do, like, sort of the the application is a, sort of a mock interview, really, and they or they're doing a little bit of a project. If this person's job is to communicate, whether on calls or on webinars or in meetings or a manager that you to be able to communicate, we tell them to submit a video.

Speaker 2: We tell them to answer this question on a video. It could be a question about, like, what was the favorite prod your favorite project? It's a soft ball question. I don't really care about the content. I just wanna see how they communicate.

Speaker 2: And I just say, you know, what was the one of your favorite projects or favorite jobs you've had in the past? Explain why it was your favorite, and they shoot a video. This allows me to see their style and see, you know, are are they comfortable speaking in front of others, in front of a camera? If if they're not comfortable being on camera and they have to be on camera in the job with meetings and things like that, that's a problem. If they're not gonna submit a video, thank you.

Speaker 2: You did me a favor. I don't have to look at your application anymore. So we go through this whole process. Our executive assistant and HR specialist, she then goes ahead and looks at all these applications, and then she verifies everybody's experience. So if you have put I worked here, here, here, here, her job is to go out and find out if that's true.

Speaker 2: Goes to LinkedIn, finds other people, chats with the connections, finds out, hey. Not even a recommendation. Like, would you recommend hiring this person? We just say, hey. Did this person work for you in this capacity?

Speaker 2: Awesome. Great. Thank you. And we don't contact the job that they're in right now. We just do the ones before that.

Speaker 2: So, again, I before it wastes anybody's time, we verify all this stuff, and then we filter out the ones that we feel like are a good fit. They do a technical interview first. We do a technical interview, which is basically whoever is in that department. If this is an engineer, our CTO will do the in the interview. Head of customer support will do customer support, something like that.

Speaker 2: And we want them to make sure that they pass the technical interview first to make sure they're actually capable of doing this job. And, again, it's project based. It's live. Whether it's answering questions from a support team or, you know, writing code or fixing a bug, or live. If they pass the technical interview, then they move on to the cultural interview, which is usually with me or Nicole, the founders.

Speaker 2: And, basically, we need to find out if this person's gonna fit in the team because we're gonna be spending forty, fifty hours a week with this person. I might as well enjoy my time. Why am I going to go through drudgery? Some sometimes we would you know, one of the mistakes we've made is that this person's excellent technically. And then we do this interview, and they're like, kind of not a great vibe.

Speaker 2: I don't really feel motivated. They're kind of, like, quiet, and they're not really good communicator, and they just I just feel like maybe they're not a good fit. And we hire them anyway because they're such a strong technical person, and then they they don't like it. Our team members are having a hard time. It's just not a good fit.

Speaker 2: Sometimes you have to realize, okay. I can always train skill. I can't train attitude and cultural fit. And usually from that point on, we then make an offer. And in that offer, we have a bit of a trial period where anybody can say goodbye at any time.

Speaker 2: And then after the trial period, you know, a long term contract begins. But that's basically our process. So hopefully hopefully, that was helpful.

Speaker 1: That was that was fantastic. That was a solid breakdown for sure. And I I think that that's, yeah, that's really the type of direction you wanna go. Right? Like, people always do it slightly different, which is cool.

Speaker 1: But of the things I say to my coaching clients is always, you better spend more time on the process. Right? Like, so many people, they're like, oh, I really need someone here. Let me hire someone and see how it goes. And, you know, not actually taking the time to understand the people you're hiring, understand them, like, their values and how they think and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: Right? And it's it's so easy for people to skip the step. It's so easy to take the shortcut. But that's also the reason why there are so many people out there complaining they can't find great staff and people aren't doing the job and all this sort of stuff. Right?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Whenever I speak to somebody that has that same concern, like, oh, I just wanna make a quick hire or, you know, I you know, maybe I don't have time for the process. I always ask them, if you were buying your own business, would you be embarrassed by that? And they'd be like, yeah. Probably.

Speaker 2: There's no procedure. There's no SOP. There's no standard operating procedure. And the other thing I say is that this adds value to your company. When you have a procedure and it's documented and everybody knows what they're supposed to do and there's a actual procedure for hiring on your company, somebody goes to buy your company, they'll be like, this you this adds a lot of value.

Speaker 2: This is an intellectual property that is part of a company's value that allows the transition to the sale much easier. And this, again, is not even about your product or service. It's just you knowing how to run a company.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Excellent. Love it. Love it. Right, Omar.

Speaker 1: Any particular resources or anything that you felt was extremely helpful for you throughout your career so far? Like, could be books or courses or particular people you follow or something like that.

Speaker 2: This is a great question. So I I've always said since the moment I started to even think about being an entrepreneur twenty years ago, the most bang for your buck in terms of most value I've ever gotten are from books. Now I know a lot of people are not, you know, huge readers. I I didn't grow up, like, being an avid reader. I got into the habit of reading when maybe in my early twenties, and it's just because I wasn't in the habit.

Speaker 2: And what I always like to say is, like, read what you like until you like to read. Just just read anything, even novels, even, you know, something that's trashy, doesn't matter. And then you'll start to enjoy the process of reading. And what I found is the your business will only grow as fast as you grow as a leader. You're you're not gonna just all of a sudden have a, you know, a Steve Jobs level company, and you're not Steve Jobs.

Speaker 2: Like, that's just not gonna happen. As long as you stay the way you are, that's how your business is gonna go. So if you wanna grow your business, you wanna have a better business, you wanna be a more profitable business, then you need to grow. You need to change. And that's really uncomfortable sometimes where you have to do something every single day to input the right stuff so that you can output the right stuff.

Speaker 2: So you can put you know, imagine if you're putting in trash in your brain, you're not gonna just all of a sudden come out with magic and amazing ideas. No. You're gonna and and that's unfortunately what we most of us do. So by having a daily habit of reading, I think it's been amazing. And it doesn't have to be, like, hours.

Speaker 2: You could just read fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes before you go to bed. That's thirty minutes. That means you're at least gonna go through a book a month, which means 12 books a month a year, which is incredible because you're getting a new idea, a new insight every single month to up your game, to improve your business, to implement something new. And I just I just find that that that habit has been great, and that's how I got started to get better. And now, you know, I've gone to the habit where I'm reading 50 plus books a year.

Speaker 2: So it's just been incredible for me because even a mediocre book, even a poorly written book, I will get one or two ideas out of, and it'll be worth whatever the $20 it was for the book. I mean, it's it's just ridiculous how much value a book has. And that's just me. Now if you are just not that kind of person and you only like learning from videos, if you only like learning from audio, whatever it is, then pick up an audiobook. Pick up pick up a an online course.

Speaker 2: Do something, but invest in yourself so that you can continue to grow is my opinion. In terms of exact resources, one of the things I like to say is you a lot of us, we don't like to read about things that we're weak at. Like, it just makes us uncomfortable. Like, if you're not really a numbers person, you're not really interested in finance. So you you just can't just jump into the the deep end.

Speaker 2: So I would start with things that maybe you're good at and just get better at it. So if you love marketing or sales, pick up a book that you enjoy in marketing sales that that really kind of, you know, lightens you up. And then from there, you'll be more open to kind of spread out a little bit. One of the the the best books I've seen in terms of helping you, reshape your mind in terms of the finances of your business is profit first by Michael, Mike Michalowicz. So it's a great book on just reframing the way you think about business and the way you think about, you know, making sure that you're building a business that's right for you and your life.

Speaker 2: So that that's one I would recommend right off the bat if you're having a hard time with the finances of your business. If you are looking for motivation and something that really will give you a clear idea of what it actually takes to be very successful in business, I love the autobiography of Phil Knight, which is Shoe Dog. He is the founder of Nike. I I I I didn't have much expectations for this book when I first read it, but as soon as I finished this book, I read it again immediately. It was so good.

Speaker 2: And what it teaches you is the reality of entrepreneurship, is the reality of that level of success. You know? You realize, oh, this guy basically ate glass for twenty years before he even saw a dollar. You know? Am I willing to eat glass for twenty years?

Speaker 2: Right? Like and that's really the question. But along the journey, there's great stories and insights, and you start to understand, okay. How how can I start thinking about my life and my business long term and not just this quarter, this year?

Speaker 1: Excellent. Love it. Love it, Omar. If people are eager to get ahold of yourself or what's the best way to do so?

Speaker 2: I always say that the best way to if you if you like this episode, you think this is insightful and you wanna learn more from me, just check out our podcast, the $100 MBA show on wherever you love listening to podcasts. Wherever you're listening right now, just search us and hit subscribe. It's a daily business lesson, five days a week, and we've we our our aim is really to help you, with a topic in business so that you can implement and then come back the next day and build upon that skill. If you're interested in learning a little more about teaching and teaching live, whether it's live courses or webinars, or live training, you can go to webinarninja.com, where we have lots of resources and freebies and free trials and all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 1: Excellent. Omar, thank you very much for joining me today. That's been fantastic.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: And to the audience, thank you very much for staying on all the way to the end. We'll be back again next week.

Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Mads Singers Management Podcast. Please leave a review. It means the world to us. You can also learn more about management at madsingers.com.