[00:00:01] Speaker A: At some point, the freedom starts to cost you something. The freedom of travel. You get tired. Your routine is gone. You're taking client calls at strange hours. You're trying to lead a team from an airport gate with bad wi fi. You start wondering if you're building a business or if you're just trying to keep it.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: You weren't born to sit in traffic, work for approval, or wait for Fridays. You were built to be free.
Welcome to Rich and Remote, the show for the ones who dare to do life differently. Here we talk about building businesses that give you choices. Where you work, how you live and what you create.
This is for the entrepreneurs who crave freedom. Financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from everyone else's expectations. If you're ready to design a life on your own terms, you're in the right place.
Rich and Remote hosted by Alex and Carla Booth.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Welcome back to Rich and Remote. I'm Alex and today I'm joined by my wife, Carla. This episode is a little different. It's just the two of us. We're here to talk to you about something we've been living with for years now. Travel.
When people think about working remotely or running a business from a laptop, this is exactly what they think of. You can go anywhere, you can work from anywhere. Nobody's telling you where you have to be on a Monday morning.
Life is good, right? And we've been taking full advantage of that. It's been a dream. To be completely honest, Carla and I have traveled all over the world together. We have split our time between Mexico and the Philippines as our two main hubs. We've gotten married in three different countries and there have been years where we took more than 50 flights. To be honest, we might even missed a few. It might even been a closer to 60. But it was a lot of flights.
50 flights. That's almost like one week. That's crazy, right?
We've also just gotten back from a three week vacation in Europe.
So this topic is very fresh for us where we're still a little jet lagged, to be honest. Carla and I are experiencing different jet lag symptoms right now.
And I wanted to be clear about something. We love travel. We're really grateful for it. But this episode is not where we complain about getting to go see the world. It's just, it's very difficult to travel and then run a business. So we're going to have a very honest conversation about it today.
At some point, the freedom starts to cost you something. The freedom of travel. You get tired, your routine is Gone. You're taking client calls at strange hours. You're trying to lead a team from an airport gate with bad wi fi.
You start wondering if you're building a business or if you're just trying to keep it. This is something that we both struggled with. Me especially, I'm going to be honest. So the question today is how much is too much, right?
[00:03:08] Speaker C: I absolutely agree with you, Alex. It's different for everyone. And it's. It's kind of like also a journey to get to know about your work self. Right? There's like, yourself and your work self. So there's the other side of it. Some questions are, what does staying in one place look like for people like us? Does it get boring or do we get restless?
Sometimes we would come home from a trip already fantasizing about the next trip.
And so we asked the other question. Is a study life something we even want? And to be honest, I don't think there's one answer. I think it's different for every person, and it's also different at every stage in your business. So today, that's what we are going to talk about. We're going to talk about what travel has really looked like for us, a couple who have two different businesses over the last few years. The good parts, the parts that were hard. And we're also going to be super honest, and we're going to talk about the times that we hit our limit or when we were short with each other. And all of that is normal, guys. We're also going to talk about what it takes to run a business while you're moving around this much. Because if you're an entrepreneur, this conversation truly matters. Your time and your energy are the most valuable things you have. Where you spend them, how often you pack them into a suitcase. And these things, especially if you have a partner, has a real effect on what you build and your relationship with your partner. So if you're already living this way or you're dreaming about it, this podcast episode is is for you. And by the end of this episode, Alex and I are going to give you our number. How many flights a year is the right amount for us? I have a feeling we might not be able to agree, but that's fine. Let's get into it. This is. How many flights is too many flights? Hey, quick one. For anyone still doing $15 an hour work when you should be doing $10,000 an hour. Thinking if you've ever tried hiring a virtual assistant and ended up with someone you had to train from scratch, I want you to check out the Hire an AI VA playbook which you can
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[00:06:22] Speaker A: and Carla, we have some questions today to the very first question I wanted to ask you is something that I feel like it's on the tip of the tongue for everyone when they find out that I no longer go into an office every day when I have the ability to live in multiple countries.
And I think it's when people picture remote entrepreneur life, they picture content, travel, right?
Is that, is that what you thought freedom meant when you started and do you still believe that?
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Yeah, really good question because you and I have very different backgrounds. I have been used to just working on my laptop and working anywhere. So I guess for me freedom meant just being able to work wherever, not necessarily constant travel. Because to be honest with you, travel per se exhausts me. You have to be at the airport two to three hours before your flight. So then you have to battle for you traffic. You get there. There are some things that you might not be able to anticipate. How long is the security line? How long is immigration? I have an ugly passport I've experienced where I would enter a country and they would accost me to a different room and just ask me more questions. So there's so many things that I have to plan around just getting to a different place. So when I picture the remote entrepreneur life, I definitely don't picture constant travel. I just picture having the self determination and the freedom to be wherever I want to be. What about you Alex? What was it like? Did you feel like you were a wild animal out of a cage right after being employed for over a decade and then finally being able to travel?
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know if, like, the wild animal being set free is it, but maybe so.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: I.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: When I. My biggest complaint when I lived in Seattle and worked at corporate was I. And people have heard me talk about this in other episodes, all the things I wanted to do were in I shot, like, I could see the Olympic mountains, I could see all the ski resorts. I could see all the things I wanted to do, but I couldn't go do them. So for me, freedom very much meant that I can go do that whenever the heck I want. And it meant from Monday through Friday. Mainly, like, from Monday through Friday, I get to go do what I want to do quickly. Does that feeling kind of run out a little bit? Because you realize if you go and do what you want all the time, you're not going to be able to do that very long. Right. So the cage starts to come back a little bit.
However, like, for example, you and I were. We just got back from Europe and now we're going to Bangkok next week. These are. These are things that I would have never pictured possible for myself.
So I do think, like, travel is like a.
Is a good identifier of freedom for me. I. I do think if we lived in a location where my hobbies were more relevant.
Granted, we live in Mexico. Super beautiful. Not complaining.
I'm a snow guy. Right. I'm a mountain guy. So if I. If I lived. If we lived in Canada or if we lived in Idaho and I was going maybe hunting during the week and then catching up on work or I was doing these things, I think I would be feeling a little bit more free than I normally do right now. But I completely agree that travel is still, like, a really good indicator for freedom for me.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: That's right. It. I think it's really.
I think ultimately the meaning of freedom is being able to have that choice and have options.
Do you think that there's such a thing as too much travel? And I know it depends on the person, so I'll just ask the straight question, what is too much travel for you?
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Actually, I think you and I are going to differ a lot here.
So I don't like to travel too much. I don't like moving around too much. I prefer to pick a location, get in a routine, and then figure out how do I maximize my freedom within the routine that that location allows. Right.
So I think there's been years where we traveled a lot. I think that over 50 flights is definitely kind of our pinpoint of where we maxed out. That was too much for me, Honestly. I Want to fly maybe like once a quarter, if I'm going to be completely honest. And when I do fly, I don't want to be moving from one location to the next location to the next location. You and I just got back from an actual vacation, like a true vacation where work wasn't really a fact.
Granted, we're workaholics, so of course we snuck in, work there a little bit.
But we, we went to Barcelona and then we went from Barcelona to Venice, rented a car, drove to the Dolomites. We stayed in the Dolomites for a week. That was when we were in the Dolomites. I was like, this is perfect. And then we started. We had to move from the Dolomites, we had to Austria, and then we had to move from a hotel in Austria to a different one.
And that's where I started to fall apart a little bit. Where even on vacation, I didn't want to move around that much. I didn't want to move around to another hotel. So I think if I'm like, on a vacation, like, moving around, but more than like, or within a week is a limit for me. Like, I want like at least one full week in a location.
If it's just normal life, I want to travel once a quarter. I don't want to be traveling around once a week. It just, it really bothers me.
How about you?
[00:12:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I like that standard. I think that once a quarter definitely is a good thing. I also agree with the staying at a place, if it's a real vacation, staying at a place one, at least one week so that you really get to enjoy. The other things that I would add is I hate traveling for long, like stretches of hours without any rest.
So there I like. For example, this weekend I'm going to Asia and I have to take Cancun, Vancouver, Vancouver, Manila, Manila, Bangkok, because I'm trying to points max with my credit card so I can only take certain routes so that I get my like, business class flight for free. For free. Hashtag free. Basically paying for time, paying for it with my time and, and some points, right? So every stop I try to spend a day or two laying down on. On a real bed, right? And trying to get my body to kind of recover instead of doing 30 or 40 straight hours traveling with weird layovers in between. I've done that before buying like really cheap economy, the cheapest tickets I could buy. And it was really hard on my body. And something that I would love to add to your list also is I love going on staycations with you. So even if you and I just drive to an all inclusive for the weekend, that feels a little spoiled. But that's also something that I kind of want in, in my lifestyle to add to what you shared.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it does help that itch if you are a traveler. So for example, Carla I think has a higher tolerance to travel than I do. I still have a pretty high tolerance, but it's pretty clear when she wants to get moving and I want to stay still. So these staycations help us a lot. And thank God we live where we do because it's super easy on a weekend. We can be staying in Cancun for a weekend just out of nowhere where we didn't plan it. Like, that's absurd. Right?
People will spend their entire year to get ready for a one week vacation in Cancun and we can go, we can decide on a Friday night that we want to go for a few nights. So feel very blessed in order to do that. But you don't have to live in Cancun to make that a reality. Like you can do that anywhere. You can find your favorite little bed and breakfast that's maybe like an hour away in the mountains or your favorite Airbnb. Just that happy place. Right. And go take the load off.
I had a question for you, Carla. Since you do have kind of like the higher tolerance right. To travel, I'm assuming that the 50 flights that we took, honestly, I think it was more. I think we're underselling ourselves. I think there's more flights than 50.
Was that the most you've ever traveled in a year? And then what was the impact to your business? Was there any negative impact?
[00:15:17] Speaker C: When I was younger, I did a little experiment called a new country a month.
So this was, I think in 2017-2019, it wasn't technically one country every month right away I would still come home to the Philippines and settle down for a little bit and then I would go. But I think in that span of two years, I probably visited 15 new countries, I would say, and I loved it. So two answers. Number one is it depends on where I was or, you know, in life. So at that point I just started to travel. And so I was very eager to see the world. And at that time, I was very happy doing one international flight every month. So it sounds a little crazy. And I was still, to be fair, I was traveling around like Southeast Asia. So the time zone challenge wasn't, wasn't hard. I was still consistent with my time zone.
My Number two, so it depends where you are in your business and where you're traveling. So because the time zone thing is a big factor. And I guess my number two answer, like, what's the most flights I've taken in a year? What's, what's happening in my business is I think in when my business matured and kind of stabilized, like my outsourcing company, I think, I think 50 with, with you, I think that was probably the most flights. But the other fine print about that year is we were planning our wedding. I think we were planning our wedding. And so that was just also that added to like the, the business of it all. And if I can share a, a small tip for our listeners at Rich and Remote. In terms of answering this question, I would say should I build my life around the business or should I build my business around my life? It, for me, it, once again, I'm not gonna lie. It depends if you are more like starting out. If you're under 500k a year in and more or less 30%, 40% profit, I would say build your life around your business because you really need to just hustle more and you need to brute force your way into your first million. I always say that. And then I think when your business is a little bit more mature, then you can enjoy some lifestyle stuff and you can base your decisions more on what kind of life do I want.
But of course there are costs along the way and there are things that you have to compromise. So I would say like, Alex, was there a specific moment that travel cost you something real in business? Maybe you can tell us that story.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I can. I think you and I are probably going to be thinking of the same one. But this actually my story because it really builds off of what you mentioned, where time zone matters, right. And how you travel matters too. So I might have like a higher threshold to travel if I'm in the right time zone and if I'm doing all the right things.
For example, if I'm taking business class, if I'm getting picked up by Black Lane, so I don't have to stress about that. If I'm staying in a work friendly hotel, which ironically is literally one of like my most favorite parts about Rich and Remote. What we're doing, is every hotel we're staying at were we're marking down our travel experience. Like is this hotel good for, for work, right?
Does is this room suitable? Do they have a business center? Is the WI fi good? All these things that we have to experience, we're like noting down and trying to give to our audience so they actually have a cheat sheet so they don't have to run into some of the difficulties that we have.
But to answer your question, like where I ran into kind of a, an issue traveling was when we spent five months in the Philippines. The last time we spent five months in the Philippines, I just kind of lost motivation. I was going out with family or friends during the day.
And mind you, Philippine working hours, I'm working at like 9pm or 10pm until the morning time, like 5 or 6am and if I go out with family during the day, that cuts out my sleep time.
And then I needed to unwind a little bit, so I would maybe go have a drink at the bar and then that would cut into my ability to start work fresh. Right.
And this was at a critical time where I really needed to be on my A game, you know, busting my ass in order to get to that first million.
So for, I'd say during a five month period, my business almost went on a complete hole.
It was mainly just let's maintain mode. And I, I did not grow at all. I think I had a few good podcasts. After five months, that's all I could show is like a few good podcasts. It definitely put a strain on Carla and my relationship because, you know, she's like, you're the man of the relationship. Like, where are you at? You should be building something. And I was at a standstill. And I do think that time zone had a lot to do with it. Right.
However, I will say it was very difficult for us to predict because there had been previous times where we had spent a long stint in the Philippines and it worked really well for me where I had, I had loved going to work at night and getting off work at like 5 in the morning. And then I'd go golfing and then I'd come back and then I'd go to sleep. And it worked really well for me. So it's weird for us because every time I go back to the Philippines, my experience changes. We don't know if we're going to get super productive Alex, super happy Alex, or super unproductive Alex. And I think the thing I just need to be aware of now is that my team, you know, they rely heavily on me. Their, their salaries, their family, families, everything relies on how well am I leading our company forward.
And I just can't take that risk anymore. So I've put a maximum amount of time for me to be in Asia now up to like, one month. I just, I won't go over one month right now, and I just need to be really cognizant of it.
So that was kind of my, my experience. Carly, is that the one you were thinking of? I'm sure, I'm sure it probably was.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: I think for, for your business, that's. That example definitely comes up, you know, fast. But I would also say, you know, looking back, I, I should probably have given you a little bit more grace because you were starting your business like you don't know how to manage your energy, being in a different time zone. And, you know, I always say, starting a business, managing a business, growing a business, these are some of the hardest things you can do, you're going to do in your life. But I guess because you didn't know what you didn't know, right? So you, you also did not expect that you would be acting like that. Thankfully, we had some safety nets. Of course, we worked it out. And then you, you, you were very mindful about your role in, in, you know, in the, in our family, as, as a man, like you said, I think, I think that's the teeny, teeny lesson about choosing your partner. You know, the values have to really come first. And because that value was in your heart and it was just not, nothing will change that. I think that really helped you kind of wake up and, and like, you know, get your ass up and running. And I appreciated that. For me, personally, I remember last year, and this is totally on me, when I was in The Philippines, my YouTube channel, I took a break on posting on my YouTube and it definitely affected my traffic.
And that was something that I honestly regret. And a big lesson for me, not a big lesson in terms of, like, I lost money, but I lost something that I was building towards. So before that trip, I was uploading regularly weekly episodes from August until, like, December until basically when we were in the Philippines. And then I just told myself, you know what, I'll just, I'll just shoot there, you know, we'll get a place with nice access to daylight. But it just never happened. I don't know what was wrong with me. It just never happened. Sometimes motivation and taking action, it just.
It just doesn't hit you as well as you think it would, you know, and. And that was really something. I think I shot like one video over the course of almost two months when we were there, and I'm pretty disappointed about myself when, when we got back here in Mexico on Central Standard Time.
Oh, my gosh. When I Saw my views, it really tanked. And the amount of like my subscribers were growing regularly. I would get like a hundred new subscribers a week. At that time I got like Nothing or like 10 or 12. And so I told myself that was a big lesson. I'm never, ever, ever, ever doing that again.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Well, and I think that is like the difficult part about traveling is the unpredictability. Right. It is a risk that we all face. It's. You don't know how you're going to react in a new location, you don't know how you're going to react in a new time zone. And there's just so many factors that go into us entrepreneurs being successful.
That's why I think we're even having this conversation. Like, how much is too much? Like, let's be careful.
And it's obviously like a double edged sword because you don't want to end up creating a job for yourself or you're checking into your work, your home office every single day and you're not going and traveling at all. So there's a give and a take. And I don't want it to sound like travel is completely bad.
One thing I was curious about here though, we just did our Europe trip, Carla. Three weeks. I think we both agreed might have been too long.
I think we're gonna go two weeks next time. And I mean this with like complete unpluggedness from our business, like handing off the business to our team.
Of course, I think we might go to Europe for longer, but maybe like giving our team our business and completely botting out of it. Two weeks might be our max. We did three weeks this time. What did the business look like while you were gone and what broke? What held up better than expected?
[00:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah. So my business was fine.
There was nothing. That was super big red flag for me. There was a kind of a negative experience that also turned out to be positive. And that was me actually letting go of someone in my marketing team. And honestly, I would not have.
It's sad to say that. Right. But also I realized that I would not probably have made that decision if life was just stable and going, going, going. Right. So because I was there, I discovered that she missed out on posting content in advance. Content that I worked so hard before the trip so that during the trip I don't have to do content.
And she didn't upload it. And when I gave her the instructions on loom, I discovered I looked at the loom when she viewed it. I discovered that she viewed it 12 days after I gave the instruction. So the reason why she missed out on that upload was not because of, like, there was something that I wasn't able to give her, which was what she said that she said, oh, I'm missing this information. And I asked her, why didn't you tell me? And, you know, she didn't have a good answer. But when I discovered that part, I was just like, really hurt and frustrated. And so I let her go. I told her it's just not a good fit. I clearly communicated my expectations. So in general, I would say it was fine. But I would also say, to be completely honest, I could have done better. I saw parts of my business that I could have done better, doing things in advance and really communicating principles. And another tip that I would share with our listeners is don't try new things when you're traveling. So don't try new campaigns, don't hire a new person, don't change to a new platform. Like if you're doing click funnels and you want to decide to go on high level, don't do it while you're traveling because there's going to be so many things that will be unpredictable.
What about you, Alex?
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I like that idea. I'm going to circle back to kind of what you just wrapped up with about trying new things. But I was really surprised how well my team did and if my team is listening, I'm sorry for sounding. I love that, but it was incredible. We had people stepping up and across the board.
I had a new CSM on our team, an internal one who just absolutely crushed it. And now I feel very comfortable with.
I have my operations manager who really is like a business partner for me at this point, just crushing it. My recruiter. It feels like I can literally step back from my business.
And I didn't know I could do that as well or as comfortably as I know now before this vacation.
So I've heard other people bring this advice up, but you do, I think, need to go on these vacations or giving overall responsibility to your team to test them.
I think you need to do that in order to figure out where you are. And this vacation completely services that. And I came out the right side of it, thank God, where my team does need a little tweaking. And this is probably back to what you mentioned, Carla, of trying something new is we do have a new lead strategy. We do have a new, new accounts manager who's in charge of this leads program. And I think my time with him is still incredibly needed. Right. So we can fine tune some things. And I think if there's one thing that kind of didn't perform as well, that's the area and that's the new thing that we started. So kind of full, full circle back to what you were mentioning, I think, I think it's exactly what you said. You just can't really try new things when you're doing that. But all in all, I'm super pleased with my team, really happy how things went.
We even successfully went through an off boarding process, added new customers, everything went swimmingly. And I feel like my team now assume the roles that they were supposed to and the ownership that we're supposed
[00:30:04] Speaker C: to, I love that. And that goes back to, to be honest, like pumping our chest here. What we do really well and what we do for our clients, which is hiring great people, hiring people that you can lean on, hiring people that give you peace of mind, whatever is happening in your life. And so that is really a huge, probably the biggest life hack, business hack that any business owner can have. Whether you like to travel or not, whatever is happening, to have that rich and remote life, you have to rely on intelligent, diligent team members that fully has your back.
So I guess my next question, Alex, kind of in that thread, aside from people that you can rely on, what systems or habits in your opinion need to be in place before someone can travel this much or someone can fully exercise that freedom to travel?
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Well, I think before we get into like systems, I want to, I want to talk about like the people and I think it's, I'm going to be an advocate for this, but it's incredibly important to spend time with your team to ramp them up.
I really dislike it when people hire someone.
They can have an amazing background, Maybe they have 2x experience that the previous person had in the role. They're still starting at a new company, they're still needing to learn your ways, they're still needing to learn your systems. So spend the time with them.
And why I wanted to mention this first is because I don't want to bring up systems and people think, oh, I have these systems so my team should be able to do it. You also need to get your team ramped up to the point where they know your business comfortably, they know how you would do things, they know the culture. Right?
So I think in terms of systems, you have to have clear lanes of ownership. The roles and responsibilities need to be extremely defined. Who does what and where do they do it? And then for my team, so we have, we have an operations manager, we have a new accounts person, we have a recruiter, we have, we have a customer success manager. They all have individually owned lands, right? But communication is done out in the open with each other in Slack. So we can see when we're communicating with a client where someone is at with different, with like different let's say recruitments, like how many candidates do we have? What is the client saying? All these things are really clear and open across our team.
And one awesome thing with today is like systems are incredibly advanced, right? We can create automations, we can create like workflows that make you not needing a 50 person team now. You just need a few people that are really good on your team that know how to work these systems. That's why Carla and I, I've probably seen a huge shift in hiring with what CSMs my clients are looking for. They're now looking for CSMs with GHL experience. Right. I'm sure you're prob seeing a lot of these roles. Maybe like operations managers now they need may, maybe they need GHL experience as well or some other tool for us. My, my, my team uses a tool called site.
So we have, we've built out our own recruitment platform, we've built out all of our client feedback, everything and the internal team management is built into Zeit. And then it triggers email responses, it triggers updates in Slack. So everything is to follow for us. And I think without that it would have been very difficult for me to go on vacation because I can now figure out what's happening in the business within 15 minutes of me looking at my phone. Right. It's super simple. And then I can have like one check in a week with my team and everyone's going through their lanes of ownership, the metrics that they own and then an hour later, you know, they feel caught up, they've gotten all the answers they need. I've been able to dig deep into some of the things I needed an update on and then the rest I can just get from my phone from Slack. So yeah, hopefully that was a good way to answer your question. But I wanted to answer it how my mind immediately went for it. It's like Zeit has been a saver for us, but it's all because we have the right people in place and we invested the time with them.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. I love that tip. Actually investing time because that was my mistake before I would go through a few people in one role and I always complained like why is it not working? And then you asked me a Very simple question, like, how much time do you spend with them onboarding, giving quick and meaningful feedback? And that was a thing that really changed it for me. So thanks to you for that.
On the same kind of question, systems and habits.
I have two tips for our listeners, and number one is have a single source of truth for us that is ClickUp. All of tasks, all of the tasks approvals go on ClickUp. And we have a thing in our company where if it's not on ClickUp, it doesn't exist. So whether I give a task on messenger, on WhatsApp, on Slack, on email, the person that I'm sending that task to needs to put it on ClickUp, right? And if they have any questions, then they can, they can also do that. My number two tip would be be very clear with your expected output. So there's been times, even if you're the boss manager, even if you're a subordinate, if you're asking for something, you need to be absolutely clear what your expected output will be. It could be something as simple as. Let me tell you guys a quick story. Last week we were doing a redesign of our sales page.
And I there were six testimonials and it was two, like rows of three testimonials each. And then I said, hey, put this testimonial on the top center. And when my team gave the design back to me, now it looked like a pyramid. So they thought that I wanted a pyramid because I said top center. But I said, no, no, no, don't, don't ruin the design. You just have to put this specific testimonial in the top, on the top row and in the center, because I want that to be the first thing that the customers see. But don't ruin the layout. And I could see both sides. You know, on one hand I was like, oh my gosh, guys, why are you doing this? But on the other hand, I could also understand why they understood it that way. So I wasn't very clear with my expected output. So that's just like a small example. But I think as bosses, we could easily get disappointed or frustrated when someone doesn't do what we ask them to do. But actually the problem is we are not very clear with communicating our expected output. So that's also another tip that I can share. Whether you're traveling or not, wherever you are in your business, a newbie or a little bit more advanced, that's always helpful.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: I'm going to go ahead and say in the show notes, I'm going to put a link To Zeit.
I think you guys should definitely check us out in terms of systems. Carla, I think you might have a link for any of the tools you're using in terms of systems.
So we'll put those in the show Notes really want you guys to check them out. It's what's allowed us to really build this team.
One of the things I get asked all the time is time zones.
Managing a team in multiple time zones is already one challenge, but clients across multiple time zones as well. I'm. I have a question for you, Carla.
When has it gone? When have things gone bad? Or what are some of the challenges that you face with managing a team and clients spread across the world in various time zones? And do you have any tips for us?
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd love to answer this question. So one thing that I noticed that has gone bad multiple times and I just honestly kind of feel stupid about it because sometimes it still happens to me and it's embarrassing, is not adjusting my calendar before a trip.
So. And then I would have to tell people when they book a time, hey, we have to reschedule because I'm traveling that day. So I learned my lesson and I still relearn it every now and then because, like I shared earlier, I'm planning layovers, and if I do one or two days of a layover somewhere that I. And then I, I sometimes I would welcome an hour or two that I can take calls, obviously, very important calls. I'm not just going on calls just to go on calls. Right?
So that would be like, one thing that I've done badly over the years that I want you guys to learn from so that you're not like me. And if I would say higher stakes, more higher stakes things is in the past, before I hired a new accounts manager, I would just lose a sale. And that hurt a lot for me just because I didn't follow up on time because I was traveling. And you guys, if you do business online and if someone needs a solution right away, I will be completely honest with you. You can lose a sale because you didn't follow up within like 24 hours or even less. I've. I've heard clients that have told me that, hey, I, I hired someone or I, I hired somewhere else or I hired someone from Fiverr. I'm not complet.
You didn't reply to me for two days. And in my head, sometimes I'd be like, two days, like, that's nothing. But they really needed it, right? So obviously this was in the past before I before there were automations for example and before there, before I hired a new accounts manager which quick plug, if you guys have a problem with meaningful follow ups, if you are a B2B business, I 100% advice hiring a new accounts manager which is not necessarily a setter, but they could also operate a setter as a setter, setting appointments for you, but really following up on the appointments and the connections that you already have and they will be able to assess which ones are the warmest and they will watch all of your leads like a hawk. So my new accounts manager, for example, just over the course of our trip, close to two contracts for us, completely hands off for me. He did the follow up, I just did one 30 minute call and then he just did the follow up. If I was on the trip I would not like having to think about following that up and or I would have honestly lost that client. So each contract is worth about 24,000 to $36,000 a year for me. So just that week alone because I had someone following up my business made $60,000 and that's just like one week week. Right. So I'll also share in the comments a link to what a job description for a new accounts manager will look like so that you guys can see if you like the idea, you can just copy it and do it in your business. I'll give you that hack and of course if you need help, just let me know. You know where to find me. So what about you Alex? How do you do the time zone thing? Especially because you're in customer success.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't think you can get around time zones.
So first off, I'll talk about managing a team.
It is incredibly important to make sure your team has a predictable schedule. As tempting as it is to try to make your team work around the clock, it's a really quick way to burn them out, to get them looking for other roles and just to not get the most out of them.
So when we hire from the Philippines, we're looking for people who work these night shifts. If it is a night shift we're looking for like for my team it would definitely be a night shift. They've worked it for 15 years. Everyone on my team, they do not want a day shift. They've worked it too long. They love working the night shift. So I'd say one, having a predictable schedule is really key. But then two, if there is a need for them to take a call, let's say with an Australian client during the day, the Australian client knows about the time difference. So time is allotted and that I compensate them or we let them flex their hours for taking a call outside and to make sure they know that it's not. I'm not expecting it to be like a normal proceeding. A lot of times I'm so conscious of it that I will take those calls when normally it would be my CSM taking those calls. Like I don't want them to have to impact their personal life. I want to hold the promise of like caring about their work life harmony and I'll take those calls. So I think there is a little bit of just like upfront grunt work that needs to be done in terms of managing a team in one time zone versus clients and completely opposite.
I do think that there's also some tools out there that currently exists that everyone is using but then also need to be improved upon and I'm actually launching something soon. So one tool is Time Buddy. I'm sure everyone uses Time Buddy. It's a way to double check your time zones. Right. And make sure that you're reaching out to people at the right time.
I'm actually creating a Chrome extension. We have it being reviewed right now. It should be getting published this week. But it makes checking time zones incredibly easy. You're able to label time zones based off of your clients names. If you want I'll go ahead and make a post about it on the Rich and remote site once we do get Google's approval for it and it goes into the Chrome extension store. But super helpful. There's a lot of tools out there that can actually really help.
I think number three is going to be making sure that you are incredibly transparent with your clients about what your time zone is, what your working hours are so the expectations don't get missed there. There's going to be, you know, there's going to be a desire to set expectations really high with a client no matter if they're in Bangkok and you're servicing the US industry. Right. You probably want them to feel like you've I'll respond to you in 10 minutes. That's just not realistic. Right. So just creating a realistic expectation with them.
And I really like to get all of my clients onboarded onto Slack for this exact reason.
I see the notifications faster.
I'm able to get the small talk direct line to them versus just sending an email.
I feel like the having some sort of DM tool does help a lot with managing clients in various time zones.
You also get a C right when it's their Sleeping hours. Slack will tell you that.
I think my last tip is I do talk to Claude a lot. Where I will ask it to, I'll ask Claude because they'll know where all my clients are, when I should be sending emails, when I should be doing check ins and I'll have it help me schedule out outreach and have my CSM schedule out there. Outreach that's appropriate for my clients. So I'm not sending them emails or urgent messages at 2 in the morning their time. Like yeah, they might get used to it but it's still annoying for them. So just be cognizant of it. And I feel like with a little scheduling and a little extra work on your end, you can avoid it.
[00:46:14] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing also that we need to remember is that even though we as business owners don't really do weekends or it can go both ways, right. We can go golfing on a Tuesday afternoon and work on a weekend and shoot a podcast or the other way where your weekends are super sacred. And then the other thing is holidays. So I also try to be mindful to not just like greet our clients. You know, Happy Thanksgiving. I think it was, was Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday. So I did greet some people and some of my clients Happy Thanksgiving if they're from Canada. But also I'm trying not to like communicate with them unless it's super duper duper duper urgent. Of course I have, I always have the best interest of my clients. But yeah, I guess go for it.
I guess thinking about, being mindful, think about mistakes and things that, you know, we, where we could drop the ball.
I wanted to ask you, Alex, what do you think is the true cost of a trip for a business owner beyond just like the flight and the hotel? What, what are the things that we might be compromising on?
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think momentum is a big one.
[00:47:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Like when you're plugged into your business and you're with your team every day, you are a big part of that momentum. So when you shake things up, whether it's your avail or your cognitive, like your peak hours of cognitive performance, that shift impacts momentum no matter, no matter what. So just being aware of the potential impact into momentum.
[00:48:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Honestly, I think you're absolutely right. You, I think the momentum is the biggest cost for me. If I could add to that, I think the other cost to that is if you as a business owner don't do enough introspection.
Meaning yeah, you made mistakes, you dropped the ball on some things and you don't learn from it, or you don't find out what the core problem is. I think that's the cost. That could be a cost, too, because when you're traveling, you could be enamored by other things than introspection. You know, you're seeing a new place, you're looking at, you're meeting new people, you're having these new experiences. And sometimes that trains our brain or that makes us just look at what's on the outside. And then we try to maybe brush the problems under the rug and never get around to actually tackling them with our team and with ourselves. So I would say, as business owners, when we travel, put some downtime in between. Don't just be go, go, go. So whether that's your time at the sauna, some quiet meditation time before your partner wakes up, I do this. I meditate. I almost always wake up before Alex. So I. I try to take that time to reflect, meditate, or journal a little bit. And it's definitely helped me and Carla.
[00:49:24] Speaker A: I. I want to go through there. Our next questions that we prepared fairly quickly. So I'm gonna. But there's one that we pass over I really want to touch on. Let's just be. We can be fast. I know you, and I know these answers. So my question is, is there a stage of business where you would stay put?
Would you have traveled this much in one year knowing what you know now? So, like, is there a stage in your business where you, looking back, would have not moved at all, you would have stayed put and you would have stayed locked in? Or is that all just irrelevant?
[00:50:02] Speaker C: Absolutely. My quick answer is your first year in business should be all about your business. Business, really everything should be about your business. If you're traveling, it has to be business. Travel, it has to be networking. When I was hustling my outsourcing company, I was hustling 12 to 14 hours a day. And after my work day, I would go only. I would only go on dinners if it's a networking dinner or if I feel like I will meet people that will introduce me to clients or affiliates. My weekends were all networking.
There were days I would go to a networking breakfast, I would work all day, and I would go to a networking evening. And all of my trips were all conferences, masterminds. And honestly, I'm very happy I did it. That's the short answer. What about you?
[00:50:47] Speaker A: I'm going to go ahead and take it a step further. I'm going to say, like, your first two years, like, don't don't do anything but work trips. If you're going to. If you're going to make a trip, make sure it has some sort of potential for you to grow your business.
What is two years in your life? Nothing. Right? It is absolutely nothing. So dedicate those two years to complete and utter focus. If I did that, I know my business would be probably twice the three times the size it is today, but I didn't. So I'm learning from it. That's. That's where I'm at.
[00:51:20] Speaker C: Absolutely. Honestly, you're probably right. I think two years is more reasonable. There. There is a famous saying that if you do something and focus on something for 1,000 days, and so that's even taking it further. Right. But if you think about it, 1000 days is a lot of time and it's almost impossible to fail if you just really focus and get your mind in it.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I have a question for you though, Carla. How would you decide if a trip is worth it? Do you have any, like, rules or minimum stay, length of time? Like, what would be your determination if you should take a trip or not take a trip?
[00:51:56] Speaker C: Well, once again, it goes back to where you are in business. Right. So I guess in the first two years like we suggested, I will only take a trip if it's business related, if there is a clear opportunity for me relative to the investment. So I made a mistake before where I bet my last $5,000. I'm not kidding. On an event. And I was just so nervous and I went there. I was. I didn't like who I was because I just felt very needy and I felt so much pressure that I should close a client. And finally I was able to close a client, but I actually closed that client after I let go of the pressure because I couldn't. I didn't meet anyone in that conference over the three days that I was there, and I just kind of gave up. And so I gave up and I started just drinking, having fun. And let me tell you, there was one guy and I, and then we were like the last people at the bar. We were just like laughing so much.
And it was nothing like romantic or flirty. We were just like talking about business. It was very wholesome.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: But that's.
[00:52:57] Speaker C: That's a good person.
No, for real, for real. That person became a client for two years. And here's the other funny story. He actually turned out to be a scammer. And so that. That's why I don't talk about him or feature him in. In Our. In my case studies. But I'll definitely tell you who he is. Alex behind, behind the scenes.
But I think, think relative to the investment and to the pressure, I wouldn't do that again. Right.
So the other thing is, if you're a little bit more advanced in business, then how I decide if the trip is worth it is if I feel like I. I could feel refreshed and I would feel inspired again and I could genuinely feel relaxed and not burnt out.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's a. I think I have some overlap on that. So for mine, I'm going to be. My rule of thumb. If this is an ideal scenario for me, once a quarter is going to be my good rule of thumb in an ideal world. And then what do I get out of the trip is going to be one. So it could be selfish personal reasons. Maybe I, Maybe it's. I haven't been snowboarding. I need to feel like a person again. I need to not feel like my business. I need to feel like I have an identity outside of my business. Right. So maybe that's the goal.
Maybe where I can expand this outside of like once a quarter and maybe it's a lot more frequent is what am I getting out of it, out of work? Am I getting an expanded network? Am I getting to see some affiliates or business contacts that I need to, you know, continue to have a good relationship with? Like, there's gotta be something out of it. And I think another one is, like, am I gonna be able to see my team? Is this gonna have a positive impact on my team?
So there's an annual trip we take every year and then fly out our entire team to this location in the Philippines and we see them. Like, that is incredibly important.
I will do that no matter.
No matter what that trip is happening. So I think my rule of thumb is on a personal note, once a quarter, if it's more frequent, it's going to be business. And like, what is the benefit of me going, am I going to get an ROI from this that's tangible, or am I going to get an ROI that's intangible but is going to help my team in some factor? Right.
So those are, those are my kind of rules.
I also think, like, I'm going to be really cognizant of time zone. So if I'm going to the other side of the world and it's. It's complete opposite of my time zone, I'm going to put a limit on it and say one month is the most I'm going to be there.
I'm also going to say I'm. I'm going to try to stay in a location at least one week at a time. I don't want to be traveling every other day to a new hotel. That's my personal ideal scenario. So those are my benchmarks. That's where I know if I'm on the right path or if I'm setting myself up for. This is too many flights, right?
[00:55:59] Speaker C: Yeah. I like that you put more meaningful answers. Honestly, like, if I see my team, it's worth it for me. I agree with that, by the way. I just didn't think about it. So thank you for bringing that up. It's really important for a leader to have that face time with your team. I actually will be visiting Philippines for a very, very, very short stint in a few weeks, and I'll only be there for a week. But I did make time to spend time in Manila where a lot of the people in my management team is, and I invited them to a dinner. And for me, that is really meaningful that I get to see them even for like one meal, break some bread, talk about things that are not work and just like hang out with them, especially my top managers. So following the same thread, I'll share my, I guess my magic numbers and my rules.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Well, then, yeah, let me ask the question too. So this is going to recap the episode.
If you had to pick a number. Carla, how many flights a year is your sweet spot from running a business? Well, and what you would tell an entrepreneur who wants to go fully nomadic. So, like, what is your sweet spot number on how many flights a year?
[00:57:10] Speaker C: Top of my head. 15 to 18. 15 to 18 flights a year I think would be awesome for me. Obviously my situation is different because I have an ugly passport, so there might be some layovers that I have to take that you don't have to take. Having an American passport and then adding to your rules as well. I want to copy the at least one week in one place. But something that's different with you is I can go for a maximum of two months at a specific place, wherever that time zone is. And that is because I have certain routines that I really like following, like my fitness routine. I want to do my Pilates there. And if there's something else that's more active, paddle pickleball. That I can kind of also do when I'm there. I. I would love to. And I just personally think one month is. 30 days is too short of a time for me. And I Would love to do two months if I really also enjoy the place, enjoy the climate. And I want to experience it more because I want to experience a city like, what's the art? Like, what's the food like, what's the bougie spot like? And then the more local and, you know, spot. And so I want to have those experiences. And like you said, I'm.
I have a different appetite for traveling and adjustments. And then I'm going to bring back my rule. Also, earlier, I'm not, not, not going to travel for more than 24 hours without sleeping on a real bed and having to move around, because even if you fly business class, you're still stuck on a plane. You're still not moving a lot.
You are comfortable in terms of sleeping, I guess more comfortable than flying in economy or premium economy. But me not being able to move, stretch so much and then having to eat airplane food, it's just not a good experience for me.
[00:59:11] Speaker A: All right, well, to be fair, I said one month is my max for a time zone that's not congruent with my current time zone. I actually happily stay in a new location for a super long period of time. I'd be happy to almost stay a full year in a new location if I, if I liked enough. If you like it, it's congruent with my time zone. So. I totally agree. I'd say all the. I thought you were going to be a higher number than I am. My number is, I think, 25. I think 25 is, like, perfect. So I'm already at. If I get a direct flight to wherever I'm going on my personal vacation once a quarter, that's already eight flights a year and back. Right. So I've got to add some business flights in there. I think 25 makes sense. That's flying every other week. If we were to stretch them out perfectly, I think that gives me some allowance for some unexpected flights, some business flights. And yeah, I think that. I think that's a perfect number. Half of what we did that one year would be absolutely perfect. And I still get to see the world, I still get to have fun, and I'm still moving the ball forward with the business. So that's my magic number.
Hopefully. That's right. Let's see.
[01:00:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I actually, just before this episode, I listed down the flights that I already took this year. So we are recording this in October and I already had 15 flights.
15 flights from January until now. And then.
Yeah, 15.
Yeah, that way more.
I, I thought so, too, but there was like the Davao Cebu Davao Manila, South Korea. Then we came back here. Then we went to Mexico City for DC Max. And then I did the embassy trip to Mexico City all by myself. And then our flight to Europe which included Toronto.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: I believe.
[01:01:09] Speaker C: I believe you, but I was just thinking we actually had less flights than we thought, but I thought we had more vacations. But I think that's because we we do our staycations
[01:01:21] Speaker B: well.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: Guys, thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful for you. This is how many flights is too many flights? Let us know if you guys think we're crazy. If you have a number, how many flights have you made in one year? Is 50 too little?
Shame us? Tell us you've done 100. I want to hear. Thank you all for listening and catch up with us in the next episode.
[01:01:43] Speaker C: All right, see you soon. Thanks, guys.
Thanks for listening to Rich and Remote, where freedom isn't a dream, it's a decision.
This is Karla, this is Alex Booth, and this is our journey to our dream rich and remote life.
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