Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I restarted this company in late 2023 when I parted ways with my former business partner. I had the opportunity to start a business completely from the ground up with my own brand of leadership, my own brand of like, sales process content. I really had full freedom. A lot of people may know about our story that we were able to get to seven figures in a little over a year without ads, but they don't know how I actually did it. I, I make sure I have sales calls every week, literally no matter what. I make sure that new people see my content every day. As long as new people see my stuff every day, I know my job is done. Once they see all of this proof, it will be very, very easy to close that person.
[00:00:45] 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.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: I've been asked to talk about this topic so many times and today I'm going to reveal to you the 10 things that blasted my company to seven figures in a little over a year without ads. Now, to give you a little bit of context, I'm Carla Singson and I own Proximity Outsourcing. We're an outsourcing company that helps online businesses and agencies hire top tier talent from the Philippines and Latin America. So if you are a super busy entrepreneur and you need people who can help you and you need more than just a bargain basement generic virtual assistant, you have to come visit our website Proximity Outsourcing and let's have a chat. And so I restarted this company in late 2023 when I parted ways with my former business partner. I had the opportunity to start a business completely from the ground up with my own brand of leadership, my own brand of like sales process content. I really had full freedom and it was such a great opportunity for me to also see what I can do and give myself a little pat on the back for how amazing the past three years has been. Every year we grow our revenue, every year we grow our team, and every year I learn a lot. But looking back, a lot of people may know about our story that we were able to achieve, get to seven figures in a little over a year without ads. But they don't know how I actually did it. And I simplified it into these 10 tips. And trust me, they are super simple. There's something that you can do in your business right now, today, so you can also make a difference. Now, of course it might not get you to seven figures immediately, but I'm 100% sure that you will learn something that will really, really take you to the next level in your online business. And so number one is I make sure that new people see my content every day. So my very, very minimal commitment is that I post a story, just a story on Instagram and Facebook. I have my Instagram and Facebook accounts linked and whatever's going on in my day, I post a story. So it just keeps me on top of mind and the people that I'm connected with. And it also, because my two profiles are both public, I, I also actually get to see that new people and strangers are looking at my content every day. So if you have a public profile and you look at who's viewing your story, you will see the people that are non followers. And so that's what I look for. Sometimes I would go on a podcast, I would write a blog, I would share something in my newsletter, I would comment on someone's profile about a question that they're asking. I would go to a group, I would go to a forum and say something about outsourcing, tell them about my case studies and get them to really see my expertise by giving advice. So I do a lot of these things and I do it strategically. I always want to show people that I'm an expert in what I do. And my company has a great reputation, a great track record in doing what we do best. And so like I said, my minimum commitment is a story. And of course my maximum commitment is I go through all of these platforms. A podcast, a video, an interview, a live on a Facebook group, a comment on a LinkedIn thread, whatever it takes, an online summit, getting on a stage, on a mastermind. As long as new people see my stuff every day, I know my job is done. I know a lot of you guys out there that are business owners and founders, sell your company and do founder led marketing. This is a very, very good principle to really think about. Are new people seeing your stuff every day? How many new people are seeing your stuff, hearing about your company and seeing your face every day? That's how you get to build the gorilla marketing version of a go to market strategy. Now tip number two, Lots of proof. So it's not enough that a lot of people see your stuff every day. They see your face. You know, you're not just sharing memes out here. You're not just making people laugh, but you're also showing that you're actually good at what you do. And so there's so many kinds of proof. There's proof of expertise. You can give advice, you can even go on a public debate. You disagree with someone and use your expertise and really kind of showing people, showing the strangers that are watching that you really know your stuff. Testimonials, right? Reviews. How many 5 star reviews are in your Google page or in your Facebook site? If you have screenshots of clients praising you or your employees on a Slack channel, Facebook messenger, you paying affiliate commissions, you moving to a bigger office, you hiring a new salesman. So a lot of these things are actually proof. They're proof that your business is booming. A lot of people trust you and people, people love working with people that are trustworthy and are like publicly showing that they can be trusted. Proof could be how many clients you have. Proof of good work, proof of like reviews and testimonials, proof of growth, proof of a positive affiliation. Like if there is another industry giant or another big name in the industry, another trust name in the industry that's not exactly your competitor, but someone with complimentary audience or clientele, if they are shouting you out, if they're saying something nice about you, it's proof. And so lots of proof thrown out there in the Internet definitely helps in growing really fast and in tightening up the sales process and in improving the sales conversation. So once a lead comes into your world or someone's curious, once they see all of this proof, it will be very, very easy to close that person. Tip number three. This is a rule that I really told myself during the first two years of my business and even the first two years when I was restarting my business, I make sure I have sales calls every week. Literally no matter what I make it, I just make it happen. So like I said, maybe my minimum commitment earlier was posting a story or I could do all these other thousand things that I could do to get my name out there, to get my business known out there, I do all of those things. And if it's already Thursday or Friday and I have no sales calls booked for next week, let me tell you, that weekend, I'm grinding, I'm hustling. I worked so hard during the first year of my business and my first year and restarting my Business. I was on sales calls, I was on networking events, I was in mastermind events. I joined so many Facebook groups because I just want to meet so many people and get people curious, get them interested and get on so many sales calls. The other benefit of this is the more sales calls you do as a founder, the more intimately you will know your client. And you can use all of this information in your marketing. The more conversations you have with your ideal client, with people that are even just curious about what you do, up to people that may be not even close. But, you know, maybe you just weren't as good of a salesperson as you should be. But if you've talked to these people, if you talk to these leads every day, if you talk to these leads every week, then you have a lot of information and you have a lot of practice. So that's the other thing I want to give as advice. As the founder, you should be a sales savant. You should be the best salesperson in your company. And the only way this can get better is not by reading by books about sales or watching sales videos or sales training. It is getting on the phone, getting on a zoom, and actually talking to the lead and then watching your stuff, assessing your own stuff, just like how an athlete would assess game videos and see what they did right, what they did wrong, and really improve themselves for the next sales call. If you just improve yourself 1% on the next sales call, you'll be an amazing sales salesperson after one year. Trust me on that. Now, the past three tips that I gave you were so focused on closing the sale and finding leads. Now do not forget the people that you actually closed. So tip number four, investing in retention. Invest in customer satisfaction. Invest in customer success. Invest in making your clients happy that they continuously stay with you. Now, don't forget that your clients are your best referral partners out there. They're your best affiliates. And so you really, really need to take care of your customers, of your clients and make sure that they're not canceling and they're staying with you and they're happy with your services because it's useless if you just keep on growing, keep on doing these sales. You're now sales of aunt, but if you can't keep your clients, then your business won't grow. You'll just be chasing your own tail, basically. And it will be a very, very tiring thing. You're basically choosing to do business on hard mode. If you don't invest in retention, one of the best ways that you can do this by the way, quick shout out is to hire a client success manager or a customer success manager. If you have a B2C business. Quick shout out to get csm.com get csm.com visit that site. That's where we get our CSMs and we send all of our clients who are looking for CSMs to that company because they do a great job. It's all they do all day. They look at your sales process and then they look at your customer success and customer retention processes. They give you advice to improve it and they plug in a super personable, intelligent and high conscientiousness CSM and it has really made a huge difference for us. Honestly, talking to clients gives me so much anxiety that it takes time and energy away from selling and growing my company, which is what I personally like. Now let me tell you a little caveat. If you are a founder, you just love hanging out with your clients all day and you just love talking to them and addressing their issues. Maybe, maybe you will delay hiring a csm, but let me tell you once again, you will be doing business on hard mode. So check out get csm.com and see what it takes to hire an amazing CSM as we did. Such a game changer for us. Number five, doing memorable things. Doing things that make you stand out. So every person is special.
There is always something special in you. Your story, your background. There's always something special with your company, with how you build it. No two people are the same. No two companies are ever the same or exact. And this is why I don't really believe in direct competition. A lot of people who own outsourcing companies, I'm friends with them and I mentor them. I mentor a lot of outsourcing companies actually, especially those based in the Philippines. I know I have a unique story and I know I have something to bring to the table that is very special to my experience, to my background and my brand of leadership. So that's one thing. You can be special by being like a special person, a special leader. But also you can do memorable things. You can have a dramatic demonstration.
So a dramatic demonstration is a marketing strategy that helps you really stand out by doing something that's super special and something that's kind of a pattern interrupt. So I'll give you a few examples of the stuff that I did. I'm not saying that I'm super amazing at this. I've tried a few things. Some of them worked super amazing. Some of them didn't really work, but they helped people remember me. So once I did 100 Days of Awesome outsourcing. And I just post a tip every day for 100 days about outsourcing. A lot of people actually remember it, A lot of people still reference it. And. And I love it. It helps my sales process. I call it sales lube.
I know. So I know it's. I just find it funny. But there's some things that really just help assist the sale. And dramatic demonstrations do that. The other thing that I did is 90 podcasts in 90 days. And so I actually didn't succeed on that. I didn't get myself to 90 podcasts in 90 days, but I think I did like 50 podcasts and. And it was awesome. My name was out there, my message was out there, I closed a few clients. And so dramatic demonstrations, sometimes, even if they don't work exactly like how you want it to work, it expands your consciousness, it expands the possibilities for you. And that's always good if you are a business or an entrepreneur. It also helps your mindset. And at the end of the day, because you're really shooting for the stars, very likely your results will still be amazing. Even if you didn't get to the amazing, amazing 100. If, even if you get at 75 or something, I bet that's still a great strategy or a great campaign altogether. So remember that guy who climbed the Taipei one on one on one with like his bare hands? Basically, that is a dramatic demonstration. Ask yourself what is the equivalent of that in your company? You know, for me it was 90 podcasts in 90 days and it was 100 days of amazing outsourcing. And maybe I'll do. I'll do something special this year. I'll have to think about that. I did join a few contests, so please pray for me. That would be another thing that helps us become more memorable. Talking about a contest that we win. I always love challenging myself. I don't care about losing, actually.
I've lost so many times. I grew up joining contests. I was joining spelling, science and math. Math bees when I was a kid. I was joining dance contests when I was a kid. And so I lost so many times. It really didn't phase me. And so I guess that's the other benefit of doing a dramatic demonstration or are really kind of shooting for the stars and doing something that stands out because even if you fail in your head, you fail or you lost at something, you still learn a very good lesson in grit and in perseverance throughout the way, and that's always a win for you in your life. Basically, number six, tip. Insisting on high standards. So this is a little connected to customer retention, right? But if everything you do, you just kind of insist on high standards, you, you will definitely, number one, keep your clients and they will love you. And number two, the new people will continuously be impressed at what you're doing. And so how you do one thing is how you do everything. That's what they say, right? If you insist on high standards, first, that starts with yourself. How do you live your day? How do you manage your time? How do you manage your health? How do you communicate with your spouse? What kinds of food are you putting in your body? How do you interact with your family and your friends? How are you showing up as a sister and as a friend? If you have high standards in your life and apply those high standards in your business, then you'll have high standards of leadership that your employees will see and they will continue to be inspired by and imbibe. If you have high standards at work, your clients will see it. They will feel valued as clients, as customers, and they will feel more encouraged to refer you and to talk, you know, basically say nice things about you. And so it's really just a win, win all over. If you insist on high standards, think about the result of having a million dollar business and ask yourself, what kind of person would own a million dollar company?
Do that.
Does that person have the life that you have right now? Do they have the habits that you have right now? Or are the habits that you have right now more similar to the habits of, of a mediocre person or a person who will likely be failing or a person who will not and may never own a million dollar company. So, you know, that's kind of a philosophical conversation, but really it translates into your business and in the money that you make and remember, money, revenue, profit, whatever you call it, these are all merely evidence of the work that you did and that you treat yourself and the higher standards you keep for yourself? Tip number seven, making every connection count. I did a lot of networking when I was starting my business and I was, for the first two years, I was going to every networking event, introducing myself, making sure that a lot of people know me. I went to so many sales calls and a lot of people were not very nice to me. A lot. There was, there were even some people who were kind of like racist towards me or misogynistic or something like that.
I never really burned bridges, you know, unless they were super mean. But I think I only burned one bridge and she totally deserved it. What I'm trying to say is that making every connection count sometimes, sometimes a no is just a no right now, right? Or not for me, but I know someone else. And you need to really check in with these people that can refer clients to you, that can make an intro, a valuable intro to the industry that will help you with more exposure or more business and whatever else that you can get from just also being a good person. So when I say networking and making every connection count, it's not only one way. It's not only so you can gain something, it's also so you can give something to them and you know deeply the best things that you can give to them. Like maybe it's also an intro, maybe it's also referral, maybe it's advice, right? And so these things, aside from the opportunity of growing your business, these things also make your life richer. Like, truly, I have met a lot of really close friends through my business. I have met one of my bridesmaids, for example, just drinking at a bar during the pandemic. But she became one of my closest friends. And, and I always find these opportunities to get to know people deeply and to really make every connection count, whether it's friendship or, you know, just like a positive interaction and acquaintance. And another thing that I do also is I pray for people. I pray for random people, you know, that I see that I, I see at the mall and, or I read some news or I see someone on Facebook that like his dad is sick or something, you know, I just take a few seconds out of my day to pray for them. It's so good for your heart. I feel it. It's good for my heart. And I feel like I'm also attracting some good karma for my business. And so of course, if I zoom out and I just talk about business, then of course every connection could be a business connection client or they could introduce you to someone who will be a client. So I guess that's, that's, that's pretty convincing.
Tip number eight, investing in a well put together affiliate program. So this is also another thing that made a difference for me in terms of strategy. I was lucky to make a really good affiliate program and to have a slogan that was easy to remember. So our slogan was send one email, make $1,000. And it is true, if you send a referral to us, all we need is intro on Facebook, messenger, WhatsApp, whatever you want to use, we want to make it super easy for you. We will make you look like a rock star and we'll put $1,000 in your pocket. And so it's really not rocket science, but if you have a way to make an affiliate program that's super easy, super easy to remember and, and it's well put together. Another tip is to put an affiliate manager in place that will manage all of your affiliates. Send them a regular newsletter, send them the their commissions, give them reminders, update them on the leads that they have. That is also another hack, especially as your business is growing. So I have one, she is definitely on it. You know, all of our affiliate payments go out on time and she always keeps these relationships. We also give favors or affiliate partners like if they need even like one on one time with me for consulting or would they want me to take a look at their copy or their GTM strategy or their social media. So I'm always happy to do that. My affiliate manager always looks for opportunities to help our affiliates and to also state on top of mind for our affiliates because these affiliates, this is not their main business. They have their own businesses, they have their own stuff to do, they have their own schedules. But we want them to always remember us and to always remember that we've, we've always tried to help them or done right by them. And so my affiliate manager manages these relationships. If you want to hire an amazing affiliate manager that will have our training, our resources, I'm happy to personally train them. Get in touch with us@proximity outsourcing.com hiring an amazing affiliate manager will just change a lot of things and maybe even bring an extra 20%, even 15% in your revenue this year in 2026. And if that means a lot to you, if that matters, you know, consider hiring an affiliate manager for under 700 bucks a month. Now let's talk. Visit us@proximity outsourcing.com and let us find an amazing affiliate manager for you that will make a huge difference for your company, especially if you are a B2B service business. All right, number nine, we're almost done here hiring smart people only. So yeah, this is a rule that I definitely follow for my own company and for my clients. And that is why a lot of seven, eight figure companies and high six figure companies trust us. We look for smart people. We hire people for their intelligence, for their initiative, for great communication. They and that's why at Proximity we run different critical thinking tests. We run personality tests. We also test our client in terms of what their communication style is, leadership style and management style. And we really try to make that perfect match between our clients and our, the remote professionals that we place for them. But I think it really all starts with number one, just hiring people with good integrity and with good backgrounds and, and number two, hiring smart people. This is also one way that we have differentiated ourselves from these other generic barGain Basement Price VA, which is just all assistance. They're all just assistants. They're learning things on the fly. A lot of them have just quit from their daytime corporate job because they get paid more. But that is really not the way to go. The way to go is to hire a real expert, to hire smart people who actually are project managers, who actually are social media managers, designers who are not VAs, who just know canva, but they're actual artists and they're designers and they've done this for a very long time. And so hiring right and hiring smart people only have a proper alignment with the title and the role that you're hiring for and what you actually need for your business. And of course, if you need help, definitely email us or book a time our calendar proximity, outsourcing com, you can easily see it or on the upper right corner, book a free consult and we'll help you and we'll give you advice, we'll build a job description for you. And even if you decide not to push through or not to hire someone right now, at least you have guidance and you have advice and you have a job description that you can use anytime now. Last tip. I love this. This is actually something that personally wasn't very easy for me when I was starting empowering your leaders and letting go one time, the only time I didn't use a laptop for like two weeks was actually when I went on a very expensive holiday and I was like, you know what? I'm not bringing my laptop to. This is like a crazy expensive holiday. But it cost me so much anxiety. It cost me so much anxiety when I was there at the vacation and I didn't want that to happen again. And I realized that my mistake was I didn't empower my leaders enough. I didn't build it up systems to make a lot of things foolproof. And I think I also just didn't trust them enough. And so now I'm really working on that. Of course I've learned my lesson. I'm hiring better, I'm empowering them more. I'm also working on my own leadership so that I can improve myself as a leader and I can also be a stronger leader for my leaders. And, and it's such a privilege to, to lead smart, capable people. And, and that is and of course I always tell them how grateful I am for having them. So maybe pick up some of those leadership books. Some of my favorites are Leaders Eat Last. I really like that book. You can learn a lot from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People will also teach you a lot about self leadership, which is the core idea of leadership anyway. You have to lead your own life and your own body and your own mind before you lead other people as well. And of course you learn a lot from from listening to elders, listening to advice from people who have led other institutions, led other groups. Find leadership advice from different types of leaders, not just listen to like Alex Hormozi and you know the same gurus all day. Diversify where you get your advice so you can also empower your own leaders with amazing leadership advice and practice. And so I hope that you learn a lot. I had so much fun sharing the behind the scenes ways that we were able to really blast to seven figures, I think in a very fast, very limited time. And you know, we're continuing to grow, we're continuing to improve a lot of things and we're super honored to be here in this, in this journey with you. So if you like this, I will post a lot more about scaling your online business and growing your remote teams. Click subscribe, click like and if you feel like this information could help someone you love and you care for someone who owns an online business or an agency, share with them and you'll get your good karma for the day.
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. If this episode inspired you, you share with a friend who's ready to live life differently too. This is perfect for entrepreneurs who crave financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from the opinions of others.
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