Charlie Dino—7 Secrets to Success with Hiring Global/Off-Shore Talent

Charlie Dino  0:00  
The global talent that we have doesn't change the hiring process; it just improves your odds. I'm just improving them because I've got a larger talented pool to look at, along with what you're looking at in the U.S.

David Bush  0:13  
Welcome to the Business Builders Playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind predictable revenue growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by BDR AI, the AI-powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting, so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. Let's get started. Welcome, everybody. My name is David Bush, and I get a chance to be your host and moderator today for this exciting webinar that we're going to be interviewing Charlie Dino on the topic of the seven secrets to success with hiring global offshore talent. Charlie has spent over three decades, started when he was very young as a child, and he went into child labor, and that's how he got to this position where he had 30 years of experience. No, I'm joking. He has got so much of experience that he's probably forgotten more things than a lot of other people know about hiring global offshore talent. So, Charlie, we are super excited to dive into this topic and to learn from your experience and expertise.

Charlie Dino  1:20  
Oh, Excellent. So yeah, let me let me start with my background within the last 30 years with dealing with hiring talent globally. Started with General Electric, did a lot of U.S. and India based hiring, then to Mexico, Brazil, and then went off to ADP, and then was a CIO for the Americas at a records management company. So I've had a lot of experience with both hiring here in the U.S. and hiring offshore. Have learned a lot. I've learned a lot good and a lot that I would take as opportunities for improvement as well. So love to get into the topic today and talk a little bit about you know some of the things you should be looking for when you're hiring, especially globally, and just kind of thinking about how you'd hire globally versus the U.S. and and listen at the end of the day, both make sense, right? And we'll talk a little bit about that as we go through the webinar today as well, David.

David Bush  2:25  
Yeah. Well, a lot of companies are facing you know the traditional problems that come with traditional hiring, which is delays, inflated payroll costs, missed opportunities, less than quality talent because the talent pool is not necessarily expansive, and so we're going to be able to to hit these things head on. And you know, we played this to be the seven secrets, but a lot of these things are information that are readily available. It's just a secret to maybe some of the people that are coming to us today because they've heard maybe something that's negative or they had a bad experience with something. And so I'm excited to dive in. Are you ready to ready to unveil these seven secrets with us? 100%

Charlie Dino  3:03  
100%

David Bush  3:05  
Well, let's just take it from the top and just talk about the number one secret that you've experienced, and and what do we what do we need to learn from you?

Charlie Dino  3:13  
Yeah, 100% So before we get into the seven secrets, one thing I do want to say, just as a a whole thinking

Speaker 1  3:20  
thought

Charlie Dino  3:20  
leadership, is that basically, if you're thinking about offshoring and you're thinking about lowering cost, that's just a that should come with it. That that's a that should be just an assumption for you, right? You'll notice as we go through the seven secrets today that you won't hear me talk a lot about lowering cost position-that's an assumption, right? That's that's when typically when people say, "Hey, I'm gonna do some roles offshore and add globally to my current team in the U.S. or wherever you're located and and headquartered, that should just be part of it, right? So you'll you'll hear that today. The other thing I want everyone to know, and especially those that feel the way I do is when I was in my last corporate job before I went into to business with a few guys. I was not to the point where I was a fan anymore of hiring globally. I I wasn't getting what I needed as far as execution deliverables. I was getting the lower cost, but my executables were taking longer, so it's why I went into business with the guys that I'm in business with now at Griffin Global Technologies, and we'll talk a little bit about that as well. So, just wanted to put that out there that that's that's really important to know before we get into these you know seven areas or secrets that I've found to be successful in hiring globally.

David Bush  4:40  
Yeah, well, we had over 100 people that were interested and excited about this upcoming event. So we know that there's a lot of people that are watching live. There's some people that are watching a recording of this. But let's dive in and talk about secret number one.

Charlie Dino  4:52  
Yeah, 100% So it's secret number one's the roles you should fill offshore and the ones you shouldn't. So we get asked a lot, like what. Role should I look at first if I was going to think about hiring somewhere outside of my current country? And the first thing we tell people is that the first thing you should ask yourself is my best talent. What are the things my best talent you don't want them to do on a daily basis? So something that's repetitive, something that maybe is a task or an objective that, when you look at it, you say, "Okay, I don't want my best talent necessarily having to to deal with that type of work. It's typically something that I would say is repetitive. It could be process driven, but it should not be something that fully utilizes your highest paid talent. Some of the areas we've found that people gravitate towards when we have these discussions or explore it, things like customer support, project coordination, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll support, data entry. Now we've had some instances, which I think is pretty cool, of people looking at specific roles in their industry that maybe is something they don't want to burden their best talent with, such as in the logistics industry, invoice auditing, track and trace things that, quite frankly, David, I never even thought about when we started down this journey six years ago in Kenya and Africa with what we offer is those are those are the moments that have been really really valuable for me. Is to think, okay, it's not just the traditional roles. You can look at roles that are specific to your industry that maybe have the same theme that you just don't want your best talent dealing with for two reasons. One, the cost factor, right? That's the easy one that you probably think of is yeah, I don't want my best talent that I'm you know obviously paying handsomely, hopefully doing those things that you know necessarily are repetitive. And then the other thing to think about is is those things that they're just not getting to, right? Maybe there's things that your best talent's not getting to, and then lastly, what we found with this secret number one is that when you have some of your best talent doing these repetitive type tasks or objectives, they get burnt out as well, right? They're looking for those you know really valuable, challenging items that you do in your business.

David Bush  7:26  
Yeah, well, I love that. When we were planning for this particular webinar, we were just talking about what are some of the things that people really need to know, and and you mentioned a quote, and you said your best people should be doing their best work, not the work that they tolerate, and that really just stood with me because I think that that's something that a lot of people understand from a sports analogy is that you know you'd want to bring in the very best possible people, and then there are certain things that are you know meant for different types of role players rather than for the super talented and obviously the super valuable. So talking talking a little bit more about what some of the participants that are watching this webinar, whether it's live or recorded, when you think about the the challenges that they're facing around you know concerns or concepts or limiting beliefs, is there anything that you could say that would just help them to rethink it in a different way, or just to be open, because there was a pivotal time where you saw something that you didn't see before, and would you share that with them?

Charlie Dino  8:30  
Yeah, I think a couple things. One, I always found hiring globally to be something where, unfortunately, the team didn't feel like they were a part of my team, right? So that's you'll hear this as we go through some of these other seven areas. Is they need to be a part of your team. They need to be an extension of your team. We strive in what we offer and global talent and resources to make sure that they feel like meaning your employees, not just you, that they're part of the team, and that when we look at it with you at the end of the day, whether that's three months in, six months in, a year in, 24 months in, do they still feel part of your team? If they don't, then we're not succeeding together in the relationship at that point, right? And I think that's important. You'll hear that as a theme as we go through. David, is are we succeeding together? Is the relationship such that we both go? This is valuable versus what I think this has come to in a lot of scenarios, which is, yeah, I'm getting a better cost position than I normally would here in the U.S. And that's again not not what we strive for, right? We want it to be both. We want it to be valuable, and it's lowering your your costs at the same time. So, and you are right. I mean, I I know I said that to you. Is this back to number one? I can't stress enough. And I would say, even in the U.S. your best people should be doing their best work, the work they tolerate. The only other thing I'd add to one before we go on to to secret number two. Is the last thing to kind of think about is high turnover positions. You made the sports analogy, right? So I think about the NBA, and and I might make that scenario a couple times. Huge Knicks fan, so very happy with what just happened. But think about the end of the bench in the NBA, right? Those are high turnover positions, right? And you know, look at what like the draft just happened. What what do you see in the draft now in the NBA? They're drafting kids from Spain or from Australia or from the Ukraine. You know, places where you think about and you go, okay, but those are high turnover positions, and so that's why they're doing it so that they can use their high dollars for the Jalen Brunsons of the world or the you know Karl Anthony Towns. So I think that's important to to make sure that we capture. You know, for those that are on live and those that you know are going to listen to the recording later on.

David Bush  10:49  
That's fantastic. Lots of negativity coming in from non Knicks fans into the chat. No, I'm just kidding.

Charlie Dino  10:56  
Waited since 1994.

David Bush  10:58  
Yeah, you deserve it. You deserve it. All right, let's jump into secret number two. And while we are going into that, I want everybody to know that's participating live, or if you're watching recording, you could put it into the comments. What questions do you have? What are some of the things that you're currently questioning that you'd like to get some expertise on? Throw it into the comments or throw it into the chat, and we'll make sure that Charlie gets to those questions, but take it away, Charlie. Secret number two: it's the hidden hiring

Charlie Dino  11:25  
mistakes that cause offshore teams to fail. The biggest mistake we see is companies trying to hire before they really know what success looks like. So, what do I mean by that? I mean, you know, we talked about high turnover positions; those roles that maybe you don't want your best talent necessarily doing those tasks. So when you think about it, when we get together with you and I start to look at where could we have success with this, is do you have SOPs? Do you have documented processes for these roles? Do you have clear expectations? Because that's what we found is that when we've seen failure with this and why we're succeeding is those are the first questions that we typically ask. We most people when you talk to them are going to say, "Well, can I see the job description? Yeah, that's part of it. I mean, that's definitely part of it. But more importantly, do you have SOPs? Have you documented your processes for this role to have you set clear expectations so that we can, on both sides, you and you know my firm, set accountability, make sure that we're hitting success factors, etc. And so, what we'll do a lot of times, David, is you know that doesn't if you don't. Let me just say this very clearly: if you don't have your SOPs documented or your processes documented, or you haven't set clear expectations. We do that with you. That's part of our process because we believe that's what success looks like. If you are wanting to hire globally with us, we want to make sure that that is known and that we have those success factors to you know roll through to success. And I will say to you something that we talk about a lot here, and I talk about with my network is, and this is this is one of the ones I probably told you as well. It's it's one to make sure you listen right now. Confusion scales faster than success. Okay, so the reason I say that is is back to my point is if we have a scenario where we don't have necessarily the documented processes or set expectations, then we're going to have a failure, and that's going to be some of the hiring mistakes. And if you've had that out in the audience, I understand. I had it as well. I looked at job descriptions, I looked at resumes, and I'd see the resume and go, "Whoa, they tick off this box, this box, this box, this box, but there were no expectations, clear expectations set on both sides for what success looked like. So, so I will say to you, so just one, a couple other thoughts here is before we start to hire and our client with our clients, we encourage them to define these specifics, daily responsibilities, weekly deliverables. What are your communication expectation? What are your success metrics? And then what we do, David, is we layer in strong English communication. One of the things that we're known for, and that I've very adamant about when I talk to people about this, is no matter if it is the best developer in the world, the best accountant in the world, if they don't get a five out of five on the English proficiency test that we give them, then for me they can't communicate with my client on a daily basis. The other things we layer in quickly is U.S. work hour alignment or wherever you're located. I know we had some people that registered very exciting that were in other continents, other countries. But whatever your work alignment is, we've aligned that for the success factors for you and for us. If we, you know, hire, we also this is a little unusual, but we were very adamant about it, David. And if people don't know, I can explain it real quick. We have our SOC two compliance in Africa. The reason we did that for physical security and IT security is we wanted people to be comfortable as they worked with us globally to hire resources that they knew that their personal identifiable data, etc. would be in good hands. We add layers if you want, like virtual desktop initiatives, etc. but that's really important.

Charlie Dino  15:23  
And then the last one that I think is really important for people to hear is: I really did not know this until I got on the other side of the coin here and started to help people find talented global resources is flexible contract terms. So I didn't know this because, quite frankly, and folks in the audience and you could laugh, is you know I was a C C level executive and I never looked at the contracts my vendor management team did and then told me what I should be looking at. But there's a lot of contracts out there with firms that provide resources globally that actually have penalties if you want to leave the contract. Penalties such as David surprised us, such as you've got to pay for our resources PTO. Wow, you've got to keep them on the books till we find work with them. One of the things that we've done to make people feel comfortable with hiring globally and with our resources is we have no risk contracts. You give us a 30 days notice, and we're good. And I'll tell you why. It's not because it's the right thing to do. It's also because we stand behind our product, right? So it's twofold. It's the right thing to do in my mind, but also we stand behind our talent and our offering. So if it's not going well, let's fix it, or let's let's understand. It just didn't work out, and I'm happy to tell you. I'm just going to tell you. Maybe this goes to the success of these seven. We'll hear is our customer retention rate is 99. So we're doing something right. I mean, I guess it's going well. But that's those are things to you know make sure people think about as we're we're going forward off our secret number two.

David Bush  17:00  
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Charlie Dino  18:09  
Yeah, 100% Griffin Global Technologies. We have 80 employees here in the U.S. Think about their technology solutions and staffing. We have 300 employees in Kenya, and we've just opened up a location in Ethiopia. We've met about 10 people there, so we're starting to mine there. But basically, you know, think about us. I would say for only 60% of our offerings are tech solutions, such as custom app application coding and and modernization, business intelligence, automation, which includes AI. We're doing a lot of practical AI. If this is not the topic for today, but if you're getting somebody telling you from from somebody who's had a lot of experience with a lot of different innovations that AI is a wizard that can fix everything and it's going to take over the world. Give me a call because that's that's not what's going on, and and I can show you how we do that practically. We also do QA, Salesforce, a few other items. Also, probably other one that people do a lot with us is integrations, integration hubs. We're using a lot of AI there. Staffing. I mentioned some of them earlier, the staffing side again, the typical customer support, project coordination, APAR, general ledger, the ones I told you earlier, and if the if somebody joined late or you know during the webinar here, that is is basically the ones that are very specific to industry. That's really surprised me in a good way. Like that was people coming to us and saying, "I think the example I gave, just in case somebody's joining late, is the logistics industry. I mean, we have a valued client out of the Dallas area that's taught our people how to do invoice auditing, track and trace, appointment scheduling. End with this, just so you know, we're not all tech. Is we have a large plumbing firm in the Northeast that showed our talent how to do what they call takeoffs in the construction business. It's estimating, and they're doing a great job. They've we've actually had a couple master plumbers look at it and be like, "Wow, I mean, this is as good or better than what I could do in the U.S. And I'd rather spend my, you know, higher dollars in my P and L on my my better talent. So that's a little bit about us. That's great.

David Bush  20:30  
Question from one of the participants, Doug says, which offshore region offers the best value for your money? You mentioned that you're focusing in specifically on the continent of Africa. Yeah, why? A couple of

Charlie Dino  20:44  
reasons. One, full disclosure: our founder and owner that was my vendor, he had a relationship in Kenya, and then we found out myself, him, and and our other executive partner that the number one tech university in all of East Africa was in the town he was going. He comes back and says, "Hey guys, this is the scenario. Decoutes the name of a D E K U T. You can start a business six years ago. So that's legitimately how it started. But I will tell you the things we've found out in the last six years. What's made it exciting, and I would say to you, some of it was strategy, some of it was we just got lucky that we were there. You've got people like big businesses investing in Africa right now, like the Microsofts, the world, etc. But what we found so far with Kenya and Ethiopia is the cost position is lower than other regions right now, right? The only caveat I would give you, and we surprise ourselves. We have been finding some senior people over the last like 24 months, but you know, think about what we offer. Typically, they're people; they're all college educated. They're coming out, and they've probably got somewhere from you know just out of college to five years of experience. So we still tell people like if you're looking for somebody that's a 20 year experienced architect in the technology world or a CPA, that's not what you're going to find right now in Africa. We could find it. It's just going to take us longer. Right now, what we're finding is is that sweet spot of somebody who's straight out of college to maybe five to seven years of experience. Our costs right now are lower than anybody that I compete with. But again, I just want to say again, Doug, thank you for the question. Is you're going to hear me keep saying it? Is if somebody's talking just cost to you, then they're missing the boat. When we talk to you, it's not just about cost; it's about these success factors we found in what we're doing globally with hiring resources and sourcing.

David Bush  22:51  
Right. Well, we covered secret number one, which was the roles that you should fill offshore and the ones that you shouldn't, and then you just covered secret number two, the hidden hiring mistakes that offshore teams that cause offshore teams to fail, and the big takeaway there was confusion scales faster than success, and also hiring before documenting the role-that's a big one to avoid. So let's make sure that that process gets identified and clear measurables, so that you know what success looks like. So let's jump into secret number three.

Charlie Dino  23:23  
Sure. The myths, the the myths that keep companies overpaying for talent. One, and we talked briefly about this, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper. So one of the biggest myths is that great talent only exists in your local market, right? Let's go back to sports. I'm a sports guy, but you could you could do this analogy anywhere, but let's use software this time, right? FIFA's going on right now. I'm in Atlanta, big deal. Everybody's excited here in the U.S. Canada, Mexico. But think about sports and like soccer and other sports right now. So they don't believe that, right? I mean, you look at any premier professional team or country team, most of them are from other countries, right? If you look at soccer with the Premier League or La Liga or any of the the large professional leagues, they've got players, and even from the U.S. now, that didn't used to be the case, right? I mean, when I you know started watching soccer when I had hair, David, it they you know the the kids weren't from the U.S. Now they're hiring. They hire the best talent, so we'll keep the hiring, but recruit and hire the best best talent. So your business should think the same way. You should think that way, right? Because elite talent isn't limited to geography, right? I think there was a time, and I think we're guilty here in the United States of thinking that well, U.S. resources are obviously going to be better than other resources globally. I'm here to tell you again. I'm going to say we can lower your cost position, but when I tell you that our team impresses me every day, and I would go ahead and put them up and compare them against U.S. Sources, it's every day. I mean, you have to see it. It's it's it's very very impressive. But that's so that that goes to what I'm saying is that you know no matter what you're looking at in the roles we've kind of talked about, whether it's accounting, customer support, software development, quality assurance, project coordination, all these other functions, if you're not thinking of recruiting globally, I would argue you're missing out, right? It's and again, it's not just about lowering cost position that will come with it, but you're going to get really good talent to augment your current talent here in the U.S. as well. So I think I told you, and then we can you know you can ask me questions, or if there's any questions on the the chat is you know if soccer recruits globally or sports in general why wouldn't business as well right you need to think that way why wouldn't you do that because I will tell you in all the years I've been an executive I want the best talent David right and and think about two very famous people that did that right Steve Jobs Bill Gates, and if you if you've ever read up on these guys, what do they say? Is I want my team to be more talented and smarter, right? So it's the same concept here. Is you know if you're thinking about hiring, why would you just go ahead and focus on where you are? We're here in the U.S. Think about looking globally and finding your best talent to get your best team.

David Bush  26:22  
I love that. You know, rather than focusing just on cost, focusing in on you know who is the best player for this particular team and the idea that they don't know what they don't know. Exploring opportunities. I mean, I know when I first started conversing with you about this event, I wasn't aware of all of the opportunities that were in Kenya and Ethiopia, and you were just educating me. So I think that it's something for everybody to learn more and to spend some time researching. I know that one of the other questions that we got from one of the other participants asked the question, "How do you vet global talent in the age of AI? And I'm curious to know what your answer would be

Charlie Dino  27:02  
100. If you've not heard this term in the world of AI, we would talk offline again if you will never talk AI with me. Human in the loop, right? It's very important. So, how are we using AI? We are using AI. There's no doubt about it. If you're not, again, let's talk offline. You should. There's a lot of practical, safe ways you could be using it and seeing some some real productivity from it. But what we do, where it's helped us a lot, is we've been able to take resumes, for instance, and run them through an AI generator and really understand if it's hitting the critical success factors we talked about earlier for our clients. You know, like we, you know, metrics. We also utilize it in our recruiting as we're looking around and finding talent as well. But I will say to you that it's a great question. But I would say in every walk of business life right now is there's got to be a diversified balance, right? I mean, AI is great, but we've gotten information back off some of these agents, and we're like, well, that's not exactly accurate, and we'd miss out on talent if we were just using AI. That's where the human in the loop, our recruiters, both U.S. and Kenyan, they're really good, and we we've taught them really well. Our founder came from that that industry, and he's honestly one of the best hiring resource vendors I ever met. So we're using traditional as well as AI, but the AI has definitely made our process even faster. But I'll talk about in a minute as we go in, David, as you and I prepped for this. How without AI, how we're finding people so quickly over in Africa versus here. We're still finding people quickly here, but just how many candidates we have, you know, queuing up at the door for us. So

David Bush  28:54  
good to hear. Thanks for the questions. If anybody has more questions, you can submit them into the chat, or you can add them as the comment, and we'll come back and answer those comments if you're watching a recording of this. So, moving on to secret number four, we're almost halfway done here. So excited to hear what you have to say about secret number four: the simple framework

Charlie Dino  29:12  
for finding qualified talent faster. So that question was timely, right? So let's talk a little bit about that. One of the reasons that hiring takes so long is because companies rely too heavily on job descriptions. We talked about that earlier. I snuck that in. We're talking about success metrics. Most job descriptions describe responsibilities. Top candidates. When you find your top candidates, they're about they care about outcomes, not not about describing descriptions, etc. in a job description. So, so we use a framework that focuses on four factors: business outcomes, daily responsibilities, required skills, and behavioral fit. And then, out of those four areas, what we also do that I think's very, very. Aggressive and unique is we use video introductions and candidate profiling through an application that we've created called Spotlight Spotlight Me. It's it's a proprietary portal that we built. I mean, think about it as in the old traditional way, David. We would have where I would say to you, okay, David, what are you looking for? Okay, we got our success metrics. We're looking for people here. Let me email you a resume. Okay, great. Do you like the resume? Nah, I don't like it. All right, let me send you another one. Okay, I like this one. Okay, let me set up an interview. You haven't even talked to this person right yet. So what this does, these video introductions, they're two-minute introductions from a pool of candidates, and you get to listen to them talk about their story, their skill set, what they bring to the table, their passion, etc. And then you can say, "All right, I like this one and this one. I want to talk to them now. You can look at their resume in the portal. You can look at their skill set. You can even go ahead, which I think is cool, is via the portal. Say, hey, you know what, Charlie? I want to interview these people in the AM only on Wednesday and Thursday, etc. So that's really helped us. Again, I think I want to be very clear. We focus on the four areas of business outcomes, daily responsibilities, required skills, and behavioral fit, but what we're doing now with these video introductions and the candidate profiling and spotlight has made I'm going to take a little selfish moment. It's made my life easier as well. Like I, I when I speak to our network and our our group of clients, I'm able to say, hey, and we're getting great feedback. Like, wow, the process is a lot faster. We're doing this with Kenya right now, David. We're actually going to start doing it with the U.S. I think it's going to be something that is going to help us, you know, across both areas and globally. So, and then just a couple other things to mention here is resumes. If you think about it, tell you what someone has done. Videos often will tell you whether they belong on your team, right? So that's why it's important these video introductions. We introduced it a few months ago. It's it's just really right now. I'd love to show people that it's it's going really well. So I would just say to you know wrap up secret four, and then we'll see if we have any questions. Is resumes they get interviews, conversations get hires, right? So that's why these video introductions and focusing on business outcomes, daily responsibilities, required skills of behavioral fit, along with the video introduction and the profiling of the resume with the video introduction. The video again will tell you whether they belong on your team. So I can't stress that enough.

David Bush  32:49  
Yeah, that's great. And you had mentioned something about Kenya in our in our pre-webinar interview. You talked about the background of Kenya and the English speaking proficiency being significantly higher because of some ancestry factors that I wasn't aware of. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about that?

Charlie Dino  33:08  
Yeah, 100% So in Kenya, in particular, they wanted to bring tourism, business, etc. So about three generations ago, in their school system, they started to hold the students accountable. That if they spoke Swahili or their tribe language, they would get punished. They had to speak English, right? So you're talking about you think about your family. I mean, you're talking about your great grandfather, maybe even your great great grandfather. So the young people we have coming out right now that are part of our resourcing pool. That's why their English is so good. I think I told you a funny story here in Atlanta playing tennis. This is five years ago. We're a year in, and somebody said, "Hey, why do you think their English is so much better? And I'm like, "Well, they were a former British colony. And the person made me feel a little dumb. They're like, "So it was India. I'm like, "That's a good point. And then we went, and I went and found out I was curious, and that's what I was told is that they started to really focus on English proficiency in their schooling system generations ago. And so that's why, if you watch these video introductions that we just talked about, to to make sure they're a match for your team, you'll see the difference in their English proficiency.

David Bush  34:21  
Yeah, another question from the participants. This one comes from John, and he asked the question about: Can you make any comparisons between internal plus offshore versus external and offshore?

Charlie Dino  34:34  
Yeah, absolutely. I will tell you, John, that about four is a six-year journey, a little more than six now. Four years ago or so, I would have told you the external factor because I think what he's talking about, David, is you know talking to external clients. Like so, for instance, potentially doing like an inside sales or communicating, etc. Over the last three years, I. Have changed my viewpoint a lot. When we first started to try to, for instance, do some cold calling or marketing with some of our representatives, it didn't go as well. Same thing with customer support. Well, over the last three years, I think it goes back to the success metrics that I talked about earlier and making sure that we set clear expectations, we've got a couple cool stories. One is a crypto ATM company that's one of our clients. They have like nine or 10 of our people now doing customer support. That's not just taking calls. That's actually if somebody's at an ATM with crypto, they've got to talk to the end user at that point and be able to troubleshoot and figure out what's wrong with that ATN. The other one is a client that buys and sells homes, and we have a group that's cold calling into home buyers and finding candidates to sell their homes, and it's going fabulous. I it's been a really really shocking but very fulfilling moment in our business offerings. The internal side, I would say, that's been going well for almost six years. I mean, it's the internal candidates resourcing. We've got numerous use cases where we've got clients that can't say in the webinar, but share. But clients that you would not think embracing offshore are embracing offshore, such as David. I think I told you we've got a very large fast food chain client to be careful that they do an employee survey each year. Like, how are things going? And one of the survey questions has always been, how are we doing working with our global partners offshore? And for years, the feedback was not very good. Well, within the last two years, the feedback. I'll just give you a couple snippets. The snippets were; they feel like a part of our team. I don't know what we would do without them. That tells you that the internal side of it is going fabulously. But these these external use cases, John, that I just mentioned, those are newer to us and they're working really well. So if anybody ever wanted to talk about that, I would you know do so more so offline. But yeah, it's working both. If you'd asked me three years ago, I'd say great internally. I don't know about externally, you know, talking to end user clients of our clients. But now it's we've got great use cases for that. Great. Well, we're on the final stretch here. So, secret number five: communication system that prevents confusion and chaos. This one's actually simpler than most people think. So I'm talking about communication systems for you as a client, right? And I'm going to throw something in here as well. But we don't ask our clients to adopt our systems, right? You're going to find a lot of companies out there, and I experience this where they're like, well, do you use Teams or Slack or Zoom? Okay, well, yeah, I mean, I do, but why do I have to adopt what you guys use? Obviously, that would be easier for you. I'm the client. Shouldn't you make things easier for me, right? So, what we do, David, is we adopt our client systems. We always have. So, whether that's a communication system, you know, such as Teams or Slack or Zoom, I'll mention a couple others for those in the crowd if they know them. I'm not going to get into the softwares, but Jira, Asana Monday.com for project management, SmartSheet, Salesforce, HubSpot. We adopt what you're using. We've we've always felt very strongly about that. I'm going to double down on that. That we've also stayed very agnostic in our solutions from a tech software perspective, for that very same reason is we want our clients to get the best value from us because they're our clients, right? We should be making our clients' life easier, and when we're getting them resources globally. That should be part of it, right?

Charlie Dino  39:04  
Not just the lowering of cost position again. It needs to be values like this, where we're saying, okay, yeah, we'll use that. What are you guys using now? I mentioned the norm, you know, like the the ones that are very prevalent. We have other instances where we've done some, you know, off-brand items as well, and I'm just going to sneak one in on us. I know it's not the topic, but same thing with AI agents right now, right? We get asked all the time, myself and my partners. So, what AI are you using? Using Claw? Using Copilot? What are you using? And we're like, we use what our client uses, right? Now we're doing agent to agent stuff and RAG, a lot of stuff that we could get into a technical discussion, but it's same same on the technical and staffing side. Is that we want to make our clients' lives easier, our life easier. So our resources are going to use what you ask us to use from a communications perspective. So, and and one of the major reasons is we want you to feel. Like the resource offshore globally is really sitting in your office. It's not a separate team. It's not operating on a different island. It is a part of your team. It's like it's sitting within the building, maybe on another floor. But so, and I would say the best offshore team is the one your employees forget is offshore, and we have a lot of use cases for that. I've got a lot of examples, but I would I want to say it one more time because I think that this is a very important point. The best offshore teams that you can hire are the ones your employees forget are offshore, and I just told you a story about a very large one that I can't say here in Atlanta. That that that's happened. That's happened, man. It's just part of their team.

David Bush  40:44  
Fantastic. This next question from the audience, Paula asks, "What does the governance model actually look like for managing offshore talent at scale, and who owns the performance?

Charlie Dino  40:55  
Yeah, 100% Thanks, Paul. I actually saw that in your your registration. That's a great question. We own it together. So what we do as part of our solutions and why things are working so well, and what we set up is we wanted accountability on both sides. So as part of our offering, we have management layers here in the U.S. and also in Kenya. We have 3u.S. former U.S. Atlanta citizens that are living in Kenya. The reason we've done that is we want governance accountability. So let's give examples. So if one of my clients calls me, typically they'll call our VPs. But if they call me, I would say, "Okay, what's going on? What's the problem? And then they bring whatever issue it might be, and we're we get on it very quickly by getting on the phone not only here in person but also with our management team in Kenya to say hey here's the feedback what do we do to make it better some of that is too I think this goes to governance would would you know maybe not traditional governance but we have teams in Kenya as well with leads on our client teams, so that leads broading as well. Not just our management layer that oversees everything accountability wise on objectives and KPIs, but also that lead within the client will will get involved as well. So that's that's what we found to be very successful in governance and accountability. So that's hopefully answers Paula's question.

David Bush  42:29  
Fantastic. Well, you said something that everybody wants to just jot this down. This is a jotter downer from Charlie Dino, and I think that this quote is something for all of us. The best offshore team

Speaker 2  42:41  
is the

David Bush  42:41  
one your employees forget is offshore. Great filter,

Charlie Dino  42:46  
great opportunity for us all to remember. All right, secret number six, Charlie and Paula. I don't know if these are being fed to me by you, David. This is great segue. The accountability model that protects quality and performance. Okay, so when it comes to accountability, our philosophy is very simple: whatever you expect from an onshore employee, expect from an offshore employee. So it doubles down a little bit on Secret Five, but I want to dig more into it. In that, you know, think of areas that I think, and I've been guilty of this in in my past in the corporate, you know, executive life is I treat probably my employees that were in my building a little different than maybe offshore globally, and some of them were part of our actual P and O. That's a no no from what I've learned. Is when it comes to accountability, your standards should not change, right? So if you track productivity, quality, accuracy, your customer satisfaction, responsiveness for your local employees-it should be the same for the employees globally, right? I mean, that's how you make them a part of the team. What we just mentioned in our in our last track of discussion. So I would say, do you track exactly the same metrics for your global employees that you would for your local employees, lower cost. I know doubling down again on this. Lower cost should never mean lower expectations, right? So I'll say it again because I think it's important. Lower costs should not mean lowering your expectations. So I would say to everybody, and if there's any question, different geography, same standards, right? That's how you become a truly a machine as a global team. Is you are not worried about where they are. It's the same standards, the same accountabilities. They're just part of your team. So that's that's an important one as well that I like people to take away from from today.

David Bush  44:39  
That's great. Well, I want to have one some time for some one more question from the audience, but would you take secret number seven next?

Charlie Dino  44:48  
100% So seven is the growth strategy that makes hiring easier, simpler, and more scalable. So hiring still hiring, right? Whether it's. You know, global or domestic. Global talent doesn't eliminate the need to find the right person. So, what it does do, it is expands your access to talent dramatically. So, let's think about this. Like, I post a role here in the U.S. and I'm sure people in the audience have experienced this. I might get 10 qualified applicants, right? That's just that's how it works. I mean, we still do it. I do it here. When we post a similar rule in Kenya, we get 150 qualified applicants. Okay, so that just changes the game. It changes your pool. If you think about things again, just to go back to our last point, different geography, same standards is when I'm looking for talent for you. I have just made my odds a lot better with 150 applicants versus 10 qualified applicants. So again, just to reiterate it, we found if your poster role in the U.S. you'll find like 10 qualified applicants. Maybe in Kenya, when we do a similar role, we're finding 150 applicants. That doesn't mean we hire faster because we lower the standards. Okay, let's make sure that everybody knows that. It means we have a much larger talent pool from which to select the best fit. The mistake we've found companies make in hiring is they rush. So the advantage of global talent isn't speed alone. The advantage is having more options, more flexibility, and a better chance of finding someone exceptional. So it's important to think that way, just from a hiring perspective. Because I could sit here and tell you, which I told you just the opposite, that oh yeah, we've got a lot more talent pool, we can find them quicker. That doesn't mean that we don't really focus in on is it the right fit? Does our client agree with the video introduction? Does our client agree with the resume, etc. So, I would just say this on seven: the global talent that we have doesn't change the hiring process. It just improves your odds, right? I mean, it's it's it's an odd improver. Like it's the odds of any type of statistics with hiring. I'm just improving them because I've got a larger talented pool to look at, along with what you're looking at in the U.S.

David Bush  47:13  
Yeah. Well, the last question from the participant Bob says, if I'm not using offshore talent or global talent. Now, what's the logical process for me to follow, and what's the time frame that it takes?

Charlie Dino  47:27  
Yeah, the logical process would be typically we have an initial conversation. We start with the number one out of the seven is talking about what roles would be the best ones for you to consider doing first globally. I'll typically tell people not just what we said earlier around you know those tasks and and processes where your best talent you shouldn't have them doing it. They're just they're just doing it and you're tolerating it. We also start with something that which was number two that you've documented, we can help you document if you don't have it. But something that you've documented because we want that first experience to hit these success factors that I went to through today that that we've learned, and then the timing of it. Typically, I mean, we've had people get their first opportunities in Kenya within four to six weeks. That's how quick, and and I think a lot of that you just heard me talk about it. Our odds, we just we increase them because we've got so many you know qualified applicants for what you're looking for, and you know some of it is too. Full disclosure, it depends on you as well, right? The person hiring needs to be very involved in the process. And so, you know, if you're looking at a few candidates and you're saying to us, "Yeah, that one's not hitting the mark, we get back on the phone with you, or a virtual meeting, or in person if you're near us in Atlanta, and say, "Okay, what are you really looking for? What do we need to put as part of the expectations and clear success metrics so we hit it? And I think that's why it takes only four to six weeks. I mean, I think on the odd on the outside maybe eight, but I'll tell you our best. Those listening from my firm will probably get a little upset with me. We've had somewhere we've been able to find somebody and get them in place in two weeks, two to three weeks, right? So, but I'd say realistically, four to six weeks on the on the outside eight, but four to six weeks is very realistic for us to get somebody in place. So, yeah, Bob, listen, I if you pro bono, if you want to talk to me about the process and and how we do it, always always here and and ready to talk. So, thank you for the the question.

David Bush  49:44  
Yeah, appreciate your consultative approach, Charlie. And obviously, you've you've got all the education and experience and expertise in this area. But you obviously also give liberally information and truth and transparency. And I think that that's why so many people just love working. You and we're so appreciative of you sharing these secrets with us. We hope that everybody captured some ideas, even if you just got one really good one that helped you to, you know, maybe have a new perspective on what's available. Please leave a comment in the chat or leave a comment if you're watching a recording and let us know what your best takeaway was. We will provide all of the contact information for Charlie, so that if you need to get in contact with him to answer answer more questions that didn't get answered here, or just have some more conversations personally about your opportunities to go globally or offshore with your talent opportunities, and all contact information will be with the recording of this video, or it'll be emailed to each and every one of you. So, Charlie, any parting words as we wrap up here today?

Charlie Dino  50:44  
I mean, yeah, I guess the only things that I would I would highlight because I think you said it earlier is two things to take away for you. I mean, take all seven, but the best offshore team is the one your employees forget is offshore. I think that's that's 100% right. It's how we operate on a daily basis. A different geography, same standards. Because I think accountability is huge in this. Right. The things I've learned, all of these are very valuable. I hope you found them to be valuable in the process. But that's important. The accountability factor. I think Paul asked it earlier. Is that the accountability factor is very very key to the success that we're having right now with finding global talent and making them part of our clients' team. So, David, I just want to say thank you for putting this together today. Thanks for those that attended. Those that are watching after the fact, I know people get busy, so I didn't expect everybody to make it that had registered today, but I hope you'll find some really valuable information from the webinar. And let's stay in touch. I'm I'm always available to to talk to anybody that's on the webinar today or anybody that watches it in the future. And you know, hopefully, again, you guys found some valuable moments here for for you to consider hiring, regardless of where your geography is at this point as a company.

David Bush  52:08  
Really good. Reach out to Charlie for more information. We want to thank everybody for your time today. If you found value in this, which I'm not sure how you couldn't have found value in it, share it with somebody that you think might be interested in this particular topic. If you're not a Knicks fan, please send all those nasty messages to Charlie's email address that we'll provide to all of you. So, thanks everybody. Thanks, Charlie.

Charlie Dino  52:29  
Thank you. Appreciate it.

David Bush  52:33  
Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders Playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind. Building predictable revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with BDR AI, or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders just like you to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's highest-paid prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us at BDR AI. Until next time, let's keep building.