Episode 39 – How Do You Get To Know Your Team?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
[Inaudible]

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to build a team podcast today. We’re going to talk about how do you get to know your team? This is very important when it comes to you having a business in to you having a remote team because it’s not as easy as having a team that is at an office right now, it is more challenging when you have a distributed team, like, you know, this, this year it’s been very challenging for all of us, especially for all the business owners, entrepreneurs some shut down some they needed to, to, to let their employees work from home. And if you are the type of business we’re in, you are so used to going to the office and having a meeting and seeing your employees, your team face-to-face. And then all of a sudden, because of everything that’s going on you have to use stream yard or zoom, or I don’t know if someone is still using Skype to have a meeting, but you know, Zillow is very big right now and in stream yard.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
And, you know, especially when you have a distributed team, you, you have to figure out when is the best time for everyone to be on a call, right? Someone will be you know, across the world and it’s going to be like 2:00 AM their time. And you want to have a meeting like, like right now we are doing some yard. We are here in the Philippines and it is 10 30, three of Thursday, 8:00 AM. So that means it is what 9:33 PM Eastern time zone. So you have to consider that the time, but I want to talk about, we want to talk about how do you really get to know your team if you have this time zone challenges, why don’t we hear it out from you, babe? Because I remember when you were back in Vancouver, we, we, we have to, what time is it there for us to have the project managers meeting? And it’s always like it, it can be during your dinner time because of course you have to eat and it can be too late to have a meeting with you because you don’t have the energy anymore to process everything that we’re going to say. So I want to hear, I want to hear this base from your, from your own experience.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Hm well, hiring staff, interviewing staff, reviewing resumes, doing the interviews is exhausting in any capacity. When you’re doing it physically live interviewing people, it’s exhausting. When you’re doing it online, just adds another element to the difficulty of it. Even though we spend our lives lately doing, you know zoom meetings and Skype meetings, Skype kind of like the Hotmail of business, email addresses but it can be tiring. And that’s, if you’re working in the same time zone where you’re not having to consider your energy level and your, the person you’re interviewing their, their energy level you know, with, with the big time difference with it being 12 or 13 hours to the East coast, then 15 or 16 hours to the West coast and eight hours, seven hours, six hours to Europe it really adds a new dynamic in scheduling that you have to consider.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
If you’re in North American time zones, whether it’s Eastern times on a Western time zone, and you’re interviewing somebody in Asia, anywhere in Asia, you’re looking at anywhere from a 12 to 16 hour time difference. And you’ve got to really consider that and how that’s going to fit into obviously your schedule as, as the business owner and the leader, but also the person you’re interviewing. You don’t want to give them an unfair Stan start by interviewing them at one o’clock in the morning or even 10 or 11 o’clock at night or early, early in the morning, fiber eight, 5:00 AM, 6:00 AM. It makes it difficult perhaps for that person to be able to, to be able to do their best in that interview. So you really have to keep timezones in mind. We’ve been doing interviewing here, like crazy the last couple of weeks, trying to add new members to our team. And a lot of times they’re in the same time zone as we are, they’re here in the Philippines, but we we’ve been interviewing people in different areas of the world and we give them our calendar and say, okay, here’s a bunch of times that are available for us. Pick something that’s convenient for you. And we had one where we figured out that it was what it was one o’clock or two o’clock in the morning for that person.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah. I had it with, I had an interview with him and it was, I forgot what where he was at Eastern

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Or central Europe somewhere.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah. But it was 2:00 AM. And when I saw his time zone, I’m like, will he be showing up because it’s time. And then I got a message and he said this is where I’m at. I said, I’m already on zoom. So so that’s, you know, those are the things that you have to consider.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s you know, interviewing remotely is hard and dealing with time zones just makes it harder. So it’s something that you, as the business owner, you, as the leader have to keep in mind. It turns out he was working night shifts, so he was quite happy to be up at two o’clock in the morning, his local time, because he was already shifting his hours for a different time zone. So it wasn’t a big deal for him, but normally I would not want to interview somebody at 2:00 AM used to working eight to five, nine to six, whatever,

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or the interview went well. Yeah. It seems like he’s really used to working at at those hours. So yeah, I, I think it’s, you know, aside from, from having that time zone challenge for you to have for example, like this one, an interview, if you are going to add more team to your, to your, I’m sorry, if you going to add more team members to your team, then those are the things that you have to, to consider. And also with regards to, you know, having a meeting for your team as well. And basically when you, when you were, when you, when you have a distributed team, you’ve got freelancers in your team, they already know they are used to being flexible. And that is the good thing, you know, things can adjust to, to your availability. And, but of course you have to be considerate.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
It doesn’t mean that they can trust and be flexible and have a meeting at 2:00 AM you you’re going to do it all the time. Actually it it sucks every time for me, it sucks every time there is a time change, you know, the daylight saving time because I have a regular meeting with a client every Monday at 8:30 PM. So that is still I still have the energy, I can still process. What is the meeting about? I can still be alert and, you know, give my suggestions, ideas and comments during the meeting and participate. But when the DST, the time clock change, I like, Oh my gosh, my 8:30 PM is now going to be nine 30 and I’m like being sleepy already, but, you know, but you, you have to consider that. And the reason why we are saying this is because for you to have that team efficiency for you to get to know your team, you have that regular meetings with your team. So we mentioned, and David mentioned about interviewing. This is also an important ingredient for, for your business to bring on, to bring on the right people to your team. And yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Sometimes part of the criteria for the right person is the ability or the willingness to adjust their normal hours of work. You know, if you’re in North America and you’re looking to outsource parts or all of your team chances are you’re going to be doing that into different time zones, whether it’s the Philippines, it’s India, whether it’s Europe you know, there is a time difference in there. And basically from the Philippines to the East coast is, is 12 or 13 hours. So it’s a complete 180 degree turn on the clock for when you need somebody to work. So part of the criteria for choosing the right person apart from skills, apart from their personality, being able to communicate well with them is knowing that they have the willingness and the ability to adjust their time schedule if you need somebody working, working hours in North America. And we do, you know, we’ve got some of our team that work sort of evenings here. And, but a lot of part of the reason why the Philippines is so attractive as a place to outsource from North America is the fact that we are off that 12, 14, 15 hours. And your team is working overnight while you’re sleeping in their daylight hours. So they’re working day shift while you’re asleep, getting all the work done. And

Speaker 2 (10:46):
That was 24 hours.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Exactly. No, when I was w you know, when I’m in, in, in Vancouver on, on, in, on the West coast I would, you know, meet with my team or send instructions to the team at the end of my Workday, which is just the beginning of their Workday. And I go to sleep. I wake up in the morning and my inbox is full of everything done that I had thought of during the previous day. And it instructed out. So there’s actually can be increased efficiencies by having a team that works in different time zones, because it is like you said, pack it’s literally, you’re able to work, have worked produced 24 hours a day.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, that is at least the, I think that is the outside, you know, the good side of having a distributed team. You feel like you are operating 24 hours a day. And once you, once you finish everything that you need to do, then you’re ready to delegate it to your team or in different sides of the world. And, you know, while you’re sleeping, they’re working on it. When you wake up, the updates are, and it’s like you’re operating 24 hours a day, no wasted time. And being a good leader is also, you know knowing and having the right team members in your team and at the same time, knowing their strengths and their weaknesses. And this is very important. When, when you hire somebody we made sure that, you know, it’s not like, yes, we have a specific, a specific tasks to work on, but we also want to discover, is this really your strengths?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Or is this your weakness? So as a leader, you need to have that eye to know if you’re dealing with a team member who is good at, for example, doing social media for you. It doesn’t have to be. And I believe in this always, you have to focus on your LinkedIn. It doesn’t need to be, you know, it doesn’t have to be like you assign a task to this team member, you post and create content. And then at the same time, you’re also wanting to that team member to grade the graphics, what it’s not his strengths or her strength to create graphics. What if this person doesn’t have the eye for art, what is it going to look like? Your graphics that is your, your brand. I mean, you need to maintain your, your branding for your business, and if it’s off and it doesn’t look professional, then your credibility will be at stake.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
So you have to be, that is just an example. There are other things, you know, other tasks that you, you will be you’ll be able to figure out as you move, as you make progress with your, you will know, and this is the reason why you have to, to know your team members. You have to have that communication with them. You have to have this meeting with them and hear them out. And because that is when you’re, you will know if that is the strength or the weakness of that team member, that is very important.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah. And it’s a different, different take on that is because of the high unemployment. And then the shift from the huge, massive numbers of people looking for online work right now we’re finding that people will sometimes disguise what their true passions are. Their true strengths are in order to, to pump up what their skills are or their strengths are for the job that you’re advertising for. So we were looking a while back, somebody with lead generation skills, you wanted somebody that had the ability and had some experience in lead generation over the internet. And we would get people that would talk about that. So yes, I can do lead generation. And here’s an example of that. And, and I’m familiar with this, this, and this, and that’s all that they would talk about. They would, they would adapt their resume and their cover letter, just to that specific thing.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
And, you know, later we find out that this person has all these other skills that they never disclosed to us, that, you know, we, yes, we’re looking to hire for a specific skill or a specific thing, but we find out after the fact that this person had all these other skills that we can also use on our team that may have made it an easier hire or a simpler hire. If we had known all of these things, it would have made our job in hiring somebody easier. And we’ve got one member of our team has been with us for a couple of years, and we initially hired him for a data entry position. Just a fairly basic skill level. Sorry, not trying to take anything away from that, but it wasn’t a big, difficult, creative task. It was, I was just a lot of data.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
And recently we’ve discovered that he has some graphic arts skills. We were in a pinch, we were trying to figure something out and he put something together and sent it to us. And I was like, this is amazing. Like, when did you learn how to do this? And he goes, I love doing Epic stuff. And it was something that we had never imagined because he came to us and sold himself to us as a team member for his data entry skills, which are exceptional. But now after all this time, we’re discovering that he also has some really strong skills in graphic design. And I wish we had known that a year and a half ago. We had him doing data entry and graphic design.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah. And, and the reason why it happened was because, you know, some, some team members are shy to speak up. And the only way for you to, to discover this is by having the regular meeting with them and asking them about their ATS and being a good leader is not just about you talking all the time. It’s also about you listening to your team. And the reason why you hire these people is because you believe that they are smart, smarter than you actually, right. Is this Steve jobs that says if you want to do something fast I can’t remember help me out here.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
I get them confused between Steve jobs and bill Gates. I don’t know why

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Through ups or bill Gates or yeah,

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Never. I always hire the lazy person to do a hard job because they’ll find the easiest way to do it or some words. And the other one is I hire people that are smarter than me, so they can tell me how to get the job done.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
I’ve learned that, but I don’t hire somebody and say, okay, this is the end result I need. And you need to do steps one through 17 to get to the end result. I’m like, here’s the result? How are we going to get there? And sometimes they’ve got a different take on the steps to get there that’s more efficient or better or smarter or faster than the way I’ve always been doing it. So how you’re smart people and trust them to do what you’ve hired them.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Exactly. And I, you know, I am amazed by how much efficiency and you know, the results that we get when we do our weekly catch-up meeting with our project managers. They’ve been with us for years. I think since we started, [inaudible] operates that, you know, managers, they have a very great digital marketing background. So that’s another thing that you also need to consider as a business owner. If you are running a business and you’re doing all this digital marketing stuff that you have to have a team member, if not a project manager, at least the VA who understands digital marketing and not just a doer someone who can, you know, some, when you hire somebody, you have to have, you need to foresee that this first thing can eventually be a project manager. It won’t, if you hired a virtual assistant, you need to first see that this can be a leader for your team.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
If you are building a team and going back to what I was saying before I forget the project managers that we have is it’s amazing to discover that one project manager, his strengths is helping our clients build members, course, page WordPress and all of that, and putting all the moving pieces together. And the other one’s strength is social media planning and strategizing social media and email marketing. And so you will be able to know what your team members skills, strengths, and weaknesses, if you have that regular meeting with them. So the key thing here is communicate and have that eye to discover and really know your team member because the outcome of your project will depend on how well you delegate the task to the right person. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
And always be, if you’re growing and you’re looking to add more team members, unless it’s a really super specialized skill that you’re for, even if it is let your existing team know that you’re looking to add another team member with this skill, you might be surprised they might have that skill and B be waiting for it to be, to move up. Like Pam said, a lot of times tend to be very shy and they won’t just come right out and tell you that they have these skills. But if you open it up to them and say, Hey, team, we’re looking to hire somebody to do this. You know, a anybody interested in, in doing this be, do you know anybody that you trust and that we should interview and you might be surprised what you get. You might find that, that somebody that you hired for project a also has deep skills in projects, B, C and D and way better. I would much rather promote from within move, somebody out, move somebody into a different position that I’ve already worked with in the past that I trust, I know their work ethic. I know they’re going to get the job done. I would much rather do that than roll the dice with going out to the internet and, and interviewing perfect strangers.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah. Yeah. So here we go, guys, before we wrap up, I just went in, have that recap. All you have to think about is two, two things, you know, for you to have for you to do, to get to know your, your team and have that team efficiency, get to know your team by having a regular making trend. And that can be our regular meeting, having a meeting with them. But of course we consider it to be the time. And then number two, you have to have that eye to discover what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses, so that you can delegate a specific task to the right person so that you can have the amazing outcome for your projects. So guys here’s another episode for how to build a team podcast and now a live show as well.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
We are really trying our best to commit into providing you quality and you know, easy to follow tips on how you can handle and build your online team and just, you know, subscribe the, some loving here. You can find us on iTunes. You can find us on Spotify in every major platform of podcasts, you can find us there, give us some summer view. And I guess that’s it. We’ll catch you again on the next one. Thank you guys. Have a good evening. And by the way, happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends in in the us. Thank you guys. Bye. Have a good night and good morning. I

Speaker 4 (23:47):
[Inaudible].