On this podcast, April Wier and I sit down and talk hiring overseas staff. We’ll walk through the most common excuses and battle stories we’ve either heard ourselves or from one of our comrades out on the field.
If you’re into the long read – then the transcript is below – otherwise take a listen or a watch.
Steph.
we’ve heard SC: I have an absolute rockstar and I actually call this lady a friend. She’s a true friend. April Wier, Hello.
April Wier:
Hey, how are you?
Stephanie:
Oh man, I am so good. I’m so glad to have you on here.
April Wier:
I am super stoked to be here.
Stephanie:
You’re really one of my favorite American friends.
April Wier:
I really like you too. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.
Stephanie:
So, for those that don’t know the amazing April Wier, April, tell the community what the hell you do.
April Wier:
Do you want the whole list or just the top 10.
Stephanie:
Maybe just the top 10.
April Wier:
I run a digital marketing shop. We specialize in web design and search engine marketing and search engine optimization for small businesses and medical clinics. I’m also a community ambassador for SiteGround. So they helped me travel around to WordCamps, teaching people about WordPress.
Stephanie:
Sweet. And you’ve actually spoken at your fair share of WordCamps
April Wier:
Yeah, I’m a little bit of a work camp addict. Once you get bit by the bug, it’s hard to stay away. So have your little WordCamp family, and it’s a lot of fun.
Stephanie:
Yes. Sweet. Did I meet you at New York’s WordCamp when I went to that one or no?
April Wier:
No. Did you go to the WP Elevation Mastermind in New York?
Stephanie:
Yeah. I did. I did.
April Wier:
I went to the one in Philadelphia that year. But I had not met you. We met in San Diego.
Stephanie:
San Diego. Yeah. I can’t remember where I was sitting across the table, but I do remember the tequilas that we had together in Thailand.
April Wier:
Well, I abstained because I’m sober. I do like to watch people drink tequila because that’s one of my favorites things.
Stephanie:
Is it like the face that they pull?
April Wier:
Well it’s just always entertaining. And people tend to tell the truth a little bit more when they’re drinking tequila, which is always fun.
Stephanie:
They do, don’t they?
April Wier:
Not that you ever have that problem telling anybody the truth about anything. I appreciate it about you.
Stephanie:
I’m straight down the line. Straight shooter.
April Wier:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie:
April and I we’re in a Slack Channel together, and we were having a bit of a banter back and forth about hiring staff and maybe moving them on or changing their seat. And then we just started firing up in terms of like, excuses that we’ve come across or things that have been told to us. I said, “Oh my God, April. This would be an amazing podcast.”
April Wier:
Yes. I’ve had some really amazing staff and I’ve had some staff that was not so stellar. And I am very quick to fire, and I’m not always firing because someone has done a bad job. Maybe they’re just not a fit or maybe it’s not the right time in my business to have them there. So I don’t want to feel like I’m saying, get out of here all the time. But I have said, get out of here, my fair share.
Stephanie:
Get out of here.
April Wier:
Get out of here. What are you trying to pull over here?
Stephanie:
I love it. So I think there’s a big sort of … What do you say? Like a misguided information maybe about how virtual assistants, VAs, outsourcing overseas staff. I think there’s a big misconception that they’re all horrible, they all cut from the same sort of leather, I guess, if that’s the way that you say that saying. And so I thought it would be really valuable for the two of us to share our experiences. Because, I love my staff. Like we’ve got a solid team and yeah, we actually had to let someone go this week and we’ve replaced them and stuff. But I mean overall, I tend to hear so many war stories, and I’m just like, what’s going on? Why are they having such a bad experience? And then, they’re sort of sharing that it’s about experience, and no one wants to hire overseas. And I think this will really help the listeners realize that although you might’ve had a really bad experience, there’s actually really good experiences to have when hiring a team.
April Wier:
Absolutely. My graphic designer who’s been with me for the last year and a half, I just helped him get another job and he’s going to do great. He’s moving upward and onward, but he was like my little brother. I mean we really … Sometimes we would just get on and start complimenting each other so much. It just became ridiculous. Oh, you’re great. Oh, you’re great too. I mean, we just had a fantastic relationship. And I found him … He lives in the Philippines, and there was a little bit of a learning curve when he first came on, but he has been an amazing part of my business. But then I hear other people talk about hiring designers and it’s just a disaster. And I hear some of the things that they’re doing, and I’m like, “Oh no, no.” There’s a person out there that needs to be filling that spot, get that joker out of there.
Stephanie:
That’s the thing, isn’t it? Like you said, you’re quick to fire. Get out of here. I think that’s a really important, I guess, point to make. So I like to think of this as dating boyfriends. It’s funny, when growing up I always used to feel like I would give them 90 days and if they couldn’t keep me or impress me within nine days, then I would just get rid of them and I wouldn’t fall in love and I would simply move on and I guess it’d be out of the blue for them. But I mean, whatever.
April Wier:
It’s not a charity. You’ve got to earn your place in the world, right? And just like in love, every spot you take is a spot that can’t be filled by somebody else. So you’re not giving that boyfriend … doing him any favors because what you’re doing is just preventing him from meeting the person who will make him happy. And that’s how I feel about people who work for me. If you’re not a fit, there’s no reason for you to stick around. And I tell you, I really hurt my business last year learning this lesson. I kept somebody on. I really liked him. I mean we just had a great relationship personally and socially, but we just really struggled to find his fit in the business. And by the time we actually found his fit, I had run out of time to spend with him.
April Wier:
And I hurt my business doing that. And in consequence, I hurt my ability to provide a space for somebody else, and that’s not doing him any favors. Can you imagine how bad he felt after we struggled all that time to find his spot and then we finally found it and then we run out of funding for that spot, because it’s no longer providing a return on investment. I imagine I probably did some damage to his self esteem, and I’ve got to own that and do better, and not do that again.
Stephanie:
I think even like, I don’t know, from an employee perspective, it’s not just about getting paid and putting food on the table. Like you actually need to go to work and feel fulfilled. Like even as a CEO, you want to go to work and you want to feel fulfilled and you want to feel like the work that you’re doing is making a big impact and it’s not just about taking a wage.
April Wier:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I tell my guys, when I hire somebody, I say, don’t get attached. Because if they do I’m getting them out of here.
Stephanie:
Baby don’t get attached to me. I might just fire you.
April Wier:
No, no. Don’t get attached to the new people. Not till they’ve been around for a while. Because, if they come in and they start acting a fool, we do not have time for that.
Stephanie:
Act a fool.
April Wier:
Act a fool. No.
Stephanie:
I love it. So, I’m going to pull some quotes out of our little chat here. So, having power outages all the time.
April Wier:
Yeah. Granted, living in the Philippines, a lot of these, workers, they struggle with power outages and things like that. But I can tell you that the guys that I’ve had that have been with me a long time, when they had a power outage, it was legitimate. And usually they were like, hey, I’ve got a power outage. I’m going to be working on Slack from my phone until I can find a spot where I can go and get a connection, so I may be slow to get on today. Versus not checking into Slack, not doing anything, not showing up. And then the next day when you’re like, I’m sorry you were no show, no call. Oh, well I had a power outage. Did your phone go also down?
April Wier:
Because, I mean that could have happened. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt one time. Okay, but let me … I just want you to know how it goes down, you’re pinging Slack on your phone, you let me know what’s up. Again, if it happens during your test week, what happens two times in the first couple of weeks were we’re probably not a match?
Stephanie:
Probably not going to go for a dinner date or a coffee or a movie, we’re just going to dump you.
April Wier:
We’re not putting the ring on it, is what I’m saying.
Stephanie:
That’s like the quote of the episode right there. If you have a power outage, you should have put a ring on it.
April Wier:
No.
Stephanie:
I mean, we had a power outage this week or last week in the office, like one of my communications manager, she actually let me know or she let another staff know that doesn’t work in the office and then she let me know because I was in the middle of meetings or something. And so yeah, there was an entire communication there. It wasn’t like they just didn’t turn up for work and then the next day they kind of like mosey on in and not say anything, so that’s definitely like a flag there.
April Wier:
And I think some of these workers are used to working for bigger companies which have large pools of people, and this is just how they make their life a little bit better, is by having power outage. Kind of like we would take a Mental Health Day, they take a power outage day, which is okay, I guess for bigger companies. But my company, we hired you because we needed you.
Stephanie:
Yeah, we actually need your skills between a certain time of day, every single day. And that’s what you get paid for, if anything.
April Wier:
Yeah. I mean I want to be wanted and needed, when I’m fulfilling a role and I imagine that I want people who want that in the role as well. Like they want to be missed when they don’t up and they don’t want to let their coworkers down and they want to be an integral part of the team. And I think that’s a really better culture. And then just little cogs that you can just plug in and plug back out again, without any consequence.
Stephanie:
So you’ve just crossed over another point here, wasting other team members time. So every team member, as you grow from one to two to three to four to five, every single team member works off themselves. And I know if you don’t actually have any stuff right now, for those listening, and you’re just considering getting your first person or your first hire, getting that second hire or third hire is just completely out of the … that would never happen. But like honestly, like I don’t know about you, April, once I hired one person and I realized how much time I got back.
Stephanie:
Like my first hire was a designer and … I’m a graphic designer, technically. That’s my trade. And I thought I was the best web designer in Sydney, in the world. And only I could design these Photoshop files and only I could present them. And I had this whole, stigma about my worth maybe as to how, when I designed the work it was … that’s amazing, and the clients … Yes. So much love for me. Then when I realized that I would spend sort of like six hours a day designing a site and then I’d have to call people back or answer emails. I mean the business was plateauing. It wasn’t growing. And so when I did decide to just rip that bandaid off and hire that designer, like I got so much time back and I finally got over the fact that I’m not the only one that can do that task. Someone else is out there that can do it.
April Wier:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I’m a web designer, and so if you’re a creative professional and you’re doing all your own work, you’re really working two jobs, you’re working the job of running your business and doing client relations and managing your processes and managing delivery. But then also you’re producing the product and continuing to keep your skills sharp, and that’s a whole job too. So it can eat your life. And I was doing that, I was doing web design and social media and I was doing all these graphics and we were pumping out just like, oh my gosh. I mean I just think about it makes me sick. And when I hired my first full time employee who was a full time graphic designer, it changed my life. And I realized he started doing 40 hours worth of work and I was still working 50 hours and it really made me stop and go, what was I doing before?
Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. Because you, all of a sudden, like the boyfriend thing, you just found space for other more important stuff that you didn’t realize you had to do.
April Wier:
Right? Yeah. And the quality of our work improved because I wasn’t rushing through things anymore. Because I knew that I had to get all of this done before deadline and only I could do it. We started putting out, taking time and doing second and third revisions internally that we weren’t doing before, and we just put out a much better product. And then I said, well that worked out really well. What happens if I would turn over the development? And so I hired the developer and then I hired a social media person and then I’m hired a project manager and a QA person. I mean this all happened over the space of 18 months, and the first hire I made was such a big decision.
Stephanie:
Massive decision.
April Wier:
Massive. And I wish I had made it three years ago.
Stephanie:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think, I don’t know if you can go back to where you were there. I think the big thing for me was like I’m going to have to pay that person, that amount of money every single month. Am I going to have that amount of money? Like I think that definitely crossed my mind. Was there anything that crossed your mind that you very clearly overcame, that’s going to help these guys, hire a staff member?
April Wier:
So the biggest thing was like where do I start? I just knew I needed help. And so what I did was I found somebody in the community that I knew, and I hired them for four hours a week to get on zoom with me and let me just talk about what I did in my business. And she documented all of that for me, and started creating some processes. Because up until then, probably like a lot of people, everything that I did was just in my head, because I knew what I needed to do and I just did it. Yeah. And so I would just, every Tuesday, from 6:00 to 10:00 we’d get on zoom and I would just say, and this is how I do social media. And we would just go through it and record it, and then she would take that off, document it, turn it into processes, really just for my own internal use, because when you start getting busier, busier, busier, you start losing threads of things if you don’t have a process.
April Wier:
And so taking those processes, then I was able to take one part of that, the social media, and just like, okay, maybe I could start thinking about hiring somebody for that. And I set that aside. And then I took another process and I was like, oh I bet I could actually hand this off. And then I got another process and I looked at all three of this and I was like, oh, that’s a graphic designer. That’s who I need. And so I went and hired that person and had some processes in place to bring them on.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Wow. Amazing.
April Wier:
And that’s a really easy place to start, you don’t have to hire somebody for that. Get a buddy who also is in the same place, and just say like on every other week, on Tuesday nights from 6:00 to 10:00 one of us is going to work on our processes and then we’re going to document it. And then the next week it’ll be my turn.
Stephanie:
Another good point here is language difficulties or spelling, right? And I think a lot of people don’t want to hire overseas because they feel like English is the second language and it’s going to be horrible and all this sort of stuff. Like I myself, I’m not a very good speller. I use the spell check all the time. Again, like your experience, I know that one of my girls absolutely rips all the content she puts in through a spell check, like there’s Grammarly, you can pull that plug-in into your Chrome browser or Safari, maybe. I’m sure Safari use it. Have you found any bigger areas here?
April Wier:
Well, we don’t do a lot of content. Most of our content we … Like when we were doing social media, which we’re not doing any more, but when we were doing it, we were pulling it from the content, which written by a content writer, and which we were contracting with. So that’s not something we really did, but my guys had great English and one of the things that I did when I hired them as I asked them to do a video telling me why they thought they were a good fit for the job and what they were looking for.
April Wier:
And one of the things I noticed is if they were looking like they were reading word for word off of something on the wall, I could say, okay, this person probably does not have amazing English. So I’m going to dig a little bit further. If everything else looks amazing, maybe I’ll jump on Zoom and have a one on one and see how they work out. But my guys have great English, and probably could correct my grammar.
Stephanie:
Yeah, I actually had-
April Wier:
[crosstalk 00:19:40] for your team on that. Do you have like you’ve got to check it through a grammar checker, you have to do this?
Stephanie:
So, our QA checker, she’ll go through … Like if it’s a website that we’ve built, she’ll take all the content off the website, throw it into a word document, and then just go through and watch the squiggly line basically and make sure that it all gets picked up. So yeah, that’s how we do it for anything.
April Wier:
That’s great.
Stephanie:
Even if it’s like … all that social media is managed on Trello. So again, I’d make sure that Ivan goes in there and sort of does his own spell checking, even I’ll write a part and be like, Oh my God, write this post and I’ll like, [inaudible 00:20:25]. And then I will have entered it into Trello incorrectly. Someone else will be there to pick it up for me.
April Wier:
That’s amazing. And I think that’s, to me, one of the biggest things about hiring a team, is finding someone who can support me in not being a perfect business owner. I don’t have to be perfect. And the stakes aren’t so high anymore, because there’s somebody else that can catch me when I fall. And if they’re not, you’ve got to get them out of there.
Stephanie:
You’re out of here. All right, let’s have a look. I might switch to like a war story that there’s one here, something about the using plugin codes for their own private use. So we both know a very good friend who had a staff that’ll absolutely go rogue and she thought that he was working for her and all hunky dory. And then she ended up finding like, I mean, I don’t know, some sort of … She logged in the backend of a plugin and then she saw that the plugin was on all these sites that she didn’t even build. And then she was putting two and two together and like, oh my God, like these aren’t my websites. But that’s my paid subscription. Like holy cow, heart attack.
April Wier:
Yeah, definitely. That’s a big trust issue and that’s a really big deal. Because in our line of work sometimes our team members have access to the back ends of our clients websites, maybe sensitive information. And that’s a huge breach of trust. I have to say though, there’s … For me, I have layers of security. There are some things nobody but me touches.
Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You got to have a certain layer of security. That’s exactly the right way to say it.
April Wier:
Yeah. And also, I tell my guys that our client work does not show up in their portfolio at all.
Stephanie:
Hell no.
April Wier:
No. However, if they want to build their portfolio, let me know and we will work that into the workflow. Because, I don’t think it’s fair for them to develop all the skills that have nothing personally to show for it. So mine, maybe we’ll have a client that we’re doing a little barter thing for or a little nonprofit that is local that we love and we want to give them a free landing page. Maybe that’s what we can put in your portfolio, so that our VIP clients don’t show up on Dribbble or some of these other places.
Stephanie:
Behance. Yeah. Like, Oh my God, wait a minute. So there’s a really good piece here that you’ve added, I believe. What do you do before you fire a VA? And there’s like an entire checklist of things to do. Did I put that in there or did you put that in there?
April Wier:
I think you put that in there but I also … You start to get some notifications that you’re getting locked out of some stuff. I’m saying your next shift might not go the way you think it’s going to.
Stephanie:
All right. So, if there is a fire in the office, someone is not doing the right thing. So, here’s just a general checklist, for those listeners that April and I have collated together. So what do you do before you let go of a loved one or you fire a VA? So we both use password … What do you say?
April Wier:
Managers.
Stephanie:
Yeah, password managers. So we use one password.
April Wier:
We use LastPass.
Stephanie:
We use LastPass. Yes. Sweet. So obviously, everyone, like, I mean I don’t know. This is even from a client side. Clients also should have one password or LastPass, because so many times you probably get clients sending you stuff and it’s all the same password. So you basically know the password that they’re using for their front door. Like, insane. So yeah, [crosstalk 00:24:29] like just a little premise. Everyone needs one password or LastPass.
Stephanie:
We cannot recommend that enough. So yeah, the password, managers actually keep like a vault. So, when a new client comes on you put the information securely into the vault and then you can then say, right, I would like this staff member to have access. They don’t see the password, but they can use a button or a function and then logging, as if they did know the password, but obviously they don’t, that’s what the password manager is doing. So when you go to remove people from your office, you just simply remove the vault and then that removes all the access keys that that staff member had.
April Wier:
And another thing that I do is we manage a lot of our sites, almost all of our sites through ManageWP. And you can go in and select all your websites and remove user to … If they have like user names on websites that they were working on and just in one click, just remove them off all at once.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So password manager is really important. Yeah. We got here removal of WordPress. Removal of website access. Do a password clean of all personal and social accounts, just in case. I like this … Like even though they don’t have the password, social media platforms, they actually get hacked all the time. So I think even like as a quarterly, or a six month task, you should be changing those passwords as well.
April Wier:
Yes, that’s a good one too.
Stephanie:
Remove email address. So yeah, obviously we set everyone up with their own email address so that we have control of communication going in and out. So yeah, we would remove them out of the G Suite account. We could then also … Google has the ability to pass on any documents or files that that staff member had to another staff member. So just when you go to swap things around, like it’s just so much easier if you’re using G Suite as well.
April Wier:
Yeah, I love G Suite.
Stephanie:
The last two I’ve got here is remove off Slack and then remove off teamwork. So Slack is a the most amazing communications channel that we both use.
April Wier:
Yes. I live in Slack.
Stephanie:
Yeah, me too. I’ve got a duner and a pillow. And then we use Teamwork to manage all of our projects. So that’s a really good tool.
April Wier:
Yeah, I think it’s really important to have a good system for onboarding and offboarding. And doing it with respect and dignity. If I let somebody go, I let them know why I let them go.
Stephanie:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’re all human at the end of the day.
April Wier:
Absolutely.
Stephanie:
You don’t want to just shut somebody off and like they just can’t log in. That’s not fair.
April Wier:
Yeah, no, no. I mean I do turn everything off before the conversation, just because that’s proper security.
Stephanie:
Some people might go a little crazy.
April Wier:
I mean not saying that they work, but that’s just good information hygiene, and then I say, this is why, and this is what you were doing really well. This is what you could work on. And then sometimes I’ll even say if you get this worked out, come back and see me in six months.
Stephanie:
We actually had to go on probation probably about two months ago. He lasted … So we do three months, so 90 days. And he made it through month two but we just couldn’t carry him through his third month. And I just said to him, “I mean, you’re a great communicator, you’re brilliant as a team member, because you’re flowing in and out of team communication. It’s just that you’re just not quick enough in a development sense, that we can keep you on and we can allow you to sit in an office for six months and sort of upskill yourself. So you’re the most perfect person. But unfortunately just your technical skills are somewhat letting you down, your presence down.” And I said to him like, “Come back dude.” Like please study, you’ve seen our office now, come back. And we hire all the time.
Stephanie:
We were always looking for really good, committed people who want to come to work, who want to feel like they have a family to hang out with, like a work family. Even over the weekend we would share in Slack like photos of what we’re doing or like I’d share selfies with my dog, the girls would show me that they’re going on a hike somewhere. So like that’s our office space. And although the teams are all in the Philippines, and that’s just like how does that … What do you mean the office is like a family space. They are not in Sydney with you. So how are you experiencing these things? But it’s actually … Technology really helps us make these connections.
April Wier:
I agree. I agree. Like, my guys and I, we’ve never met in person. I keep saying I’m going to next … Next year I’m going to get over there. I’m going to fly over to Manila and go see you. But I feel like, especially with my graphic designer who’s been with me the longest, I do feel like we’re friends and I’ve invested in his success and I really want him to succeed, and because we are talking every single day.
Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly.
April Wier:
Your constant contact. It’s not like they get a list and I’ll see him again.
Stephanie:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Now there is definitely some really tight bonding there that you do.
April Wier:
I agree. Yeah. In the past, sometimes that has gotten me in trouble, because I don’t want to let somebody go who isn’t a good fit, you know? And that’s, for me, the hardest thing. Is I don’t want to disappoint anybody or hurt anybody, and it is a responsibility to know that, where I live, I’m very privileged economically, and that may not be the case where they live. And so there’s a part of me that wants to soften that blow when they’re not a fit, because I know that it can be an impact. But then at the same time, should I take that position away from somebody who has really put in the time to improve themselves and is really going to function. We can do really good things in the world, but at the end of the day it’s a business and not a charity. And that doesn’t give them the dignity of their position. If we’re like, well, you don’t have to be at the best you can be just because you’re economically disadvantaged.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that’s right. You still want someone to turn up … What do you say? Suited up, ready to go.
April Wier:
Oh, you’re game face. Let’s go.
Stephanie:
Just going back to that whole password thing, I had a flashback to when I got retrenched from my last job I ever had back in 2011 and I got retrenched at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and I worked in the city and there was no buses to get home at the time. So I had to wait like a couple of hours before I can even go home. But I remember just trying to log in and I couldn’t actually log in anymore. They had looked me out, and I was like, God damn it. I mean, I’m not a bad person. What am I going to do? Am I going to be vindictive here? So I can see from the staff’s perspective getting locked out. All of a sudden it’s like, Oh, God damn it
April Wier:
To be honest, you knew it was coming. If it comes from one of us, more than likely, you knew you had been skating by for a minute and you had already had a few chances to tighten it up.
Stephanie:
Oh yeah. Now the staff member that I had just let go, I mean, yeah. A constant reminders of how he wasn’t performing or how he was not doing all the other things that all the rest of the team members do. It’s like we developed a process so that every single morning, we all announced what we’re doing and we share our wins and I mean, I asked this staff member that many times, what are you doing today? What did you win yesterday? What are you looking forward to? What team member has helped you out? He always just said, good morning. I’m just like, dude, like you’re not fitting our culture. You’re not sharing. And that’s a really important part. So yeah, I’m sure he saw it coming.
April Wier:
Yes. Definitely not participating in stand up meetings is a huge red flag for me. You know? Well, we ask these questions of you. It’s a very easy way to participate and show up and do your job. If you can’t answer a question about what you’re doing or what you did. I mean, just at the very minimum, come on. Were are you really that surprised when your password didn’t work? I mean, it can sometimes be ugly, but-
Stephanie:
You sounded really evil just now. Get out of here.
April Wier:
Get out of here. You can’t even answer a question.
Stephanie:
Gosh. I mean, April, I think we might wrap it up for the episode. I think we’ve given the guys heaps of points to consider. If you don’t have any staff and you’re looking to grow, and I mean you’re noticing that your business might be plateauing or you’re not getting anywhere. Maybe you need to start duplicating yourself and-
April Wier:
Maybe you have. Maybe you should.
Stephanie:
Yeah, like maybe some of these points that April and I have spoken about is going to help you sort of break through, because it is a … Like you said before. That first staff member is so such a big choice.
April Wier:
It is. Just dip your baby toe into it. Just get somebody for a couple of hours to try it out. Just dip that baby toe in it. You don’t have to jump full force into it, although you can, try it and see if it helps. And don’t let these horror stories … because they’re … Mostly 95% of my experience has been amazing. It’s been the 5% that hasn’t been, you’ve just got to … Don’t put up with any nonsense, and don’t let your crew run you. Your job is to run the crew, don’t let your crew run you.
Stephanie:
Wow. Again, that is a, as Marie Folio says, that’s a tweetable. Like don’t let your crew run you. I want to finish this with just some positive experiences. So, for me, Monday we downloaded LearnDash and Astra, some membership site stuff. I gave the keys to the guys about two o’clock and then the next morning, 6:00 AM, I checked my Slack and they had already built the site and here I was thinking that this was going to take like months. And then they just did it like in a couple of hours. So that’s a really … If you just give them the keys and let them do what they can do, then they’ll turn up and they’ll do it.
April Wier:
That’s right. I had something, like a really great positive experience was, I guess this was about four months ago. I had a health crisis and ended up having emergency surgery. I mean just like I started feeling bad on a Sunday night. By the next morning I was in surgery and the next day was Monday. Obviously people are expecting things and I was out for a full week and my team took care of business, like the help tickets, you know? And that before I had a team, that would have been a disaster. So there are some beautiful things about having a team.
Stephanie:
I think sometimes my clients thank my communications manager before they thank me, and I’m just like, hello.
April Wier:
I’m up here. I’m a person too.
Stephanie:
I’m CEO. I hired this person. Give me some love. They become little superstars.
April Wier:
They do. If you treat them well and give them the opportunity to grow and don’t try to keep them where they started.
Stephanie:
What about birthdays? Do you let them take their birthday off?
April Wier:
Honestly, I would let my guys do anything they wanted to do, quite frankly. Because they work so damn hard. One of my guys, I had to force him to take the day off when he had eye surgery. I’m like, no, you got to go home. Stop, stop. Get off the phone, put it down. They’re so dedicated and vested into the success of my business. And when I take a day off sometimes I’m just like everybody go home.
Stephanie:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
April Wier:
Because, I don’t want you bothering me, and not that it’s all about me, but I want them to relax and just have surprise days off and to have it be a good place to work for that. Because I want them to enjoy their life. Like I want to enjoy my life.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Good healthy workplace.
April Wier:
Absolutely. Giving them their holidays off, but they got to tell me about it and ping me about it. Because I’m not keeping up with everybody’s holidays, not my holidays and your holidays and their holidays. You don’t have to tell me when the holidays are so I can give it off to you. Ping 13th month, all of these things that … And that I would say, if you’re going to hire a team, find out what it means to be a good boss to overseas people.
Stephanie:
Yeah, yeah. Amen.
April Wier:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
Well, I hope everyone loved hearing from April Wier. So we’ll, I guess, do a round of applause. Thank you so much.
April Wier:
Thank you so much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed your podcast and I just feel super honored just to be a part of it.
Stephanie:
But now you’re like a special guest.
April Wier:
I know, right?
Stephanie:
All right. Well thank you so much, April, for sharing so openly with listeners and I’m looking forward to hearing what’s coming up next.
April Wier:
All right. Thank you so much.
