Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: This is Remote Rockstars, the Proximity Outsourcing Knowledge suite.
Learn how we work, what makes us unique, how we stand out at taking care of our team, our client success stories, and get advice on the best practices that we discovered.
Listen in and let's scale your business fast and easy with proximity Outsourcing.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Hello, hello, hello. This is Karla of Proximity Outsourcing, and today I am going to record my favorite episode, because in this episode, I will share with you what makes us different from other outsourcing companies. And this is really my little space in the Internet where I can brag about the work that we do, about the kind of people we are and how much change and positive change we give our clients. But. And what the reason behind that is. The reasons, basically. And so I want to start by, you know, we are an all Filipino team. I am Filipino, and as the founder, I've traveled a lot, and I've also worked with people of different cultures, and I'm very exposed to the three cultures or the three nationalities that we work with. The top three nationalities, which is us, UK and Australia, these are three countries that we serve at Proximity Outsourcing. We also serve a lot of clients outside of those countries. But the fact that I have a lot of exposure, I'm able to communicate the expectations and a little cultural nuances to my team.
And so also being Filipino, I understand what it's like to work for companies like that, what it's like to be Filipino living in the Philippines. I have context on how the culture is really like and how to motivate Filipinos. I think that gives us a huge advantage because as I'm able to do business with people from other countries, I'm also able to really understand my own team in a. In a very deep way because it's very foundational.
I spent the, I would say, the first 25 years of my life in the Philippines, and I've gone through the same experiences with my teammates, grew up in the same kinds of backgrounds, environment.
We have context in certain schools, certain.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Impressions of certain people and work and companies. And so I think that definitely puts us at an advantageous position. We. You also have an all Filipino team. So everyone from the client, success manager, the va, the virtual assistant, project managers, and our sales team is actually either half Filipino, quarter Filipino, but they have lived in Australia, Canada, US but they also have a great grasp of the Filipino culture. So I'm also kind of super proud about that.
Another thing that we're really proud of is we're definitely very choosy in terms of clientele. We only want to hire people that we think are going to be good bosses, good clients. People who have no problems with having reasonable expectations, being reasonable, not being mean or rude or not yelling at my teammates. Let me tell you, having almost a decade in experience experience in this industry, I have encountered nightmare clients and it's just not worth stressing over them. It's not worth ruining the morale of my team, my people. So we're very, very trucy with our clients. We also choose companies and businesses that are sustainable. We don't want our team to just run, run out of a job or.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Suddenly realize that this company is unstable and it will also cause a lot of anxiety in their lives. So that is definitely on the client side.
And now I'm going to talk about the RP side or the side of the remote professionals. So I do believe we have a very stringent hiring system. We announce in different parts of the Internet. We hire remotely all over the Philippines, but we only hire in places where there is stable Internet and, and stable and fast Internet and stable electricity. We try to hire away from calamity prone areas or cities with a lot of storms, typhoons and other calamities or you know, flooding that will definitely get in the way of them being able to do the job. So we don't hire from those cities. We focus on certain cities that are very friendly in terms of remote work.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: We do a lot of vetting, background checks. We also do proficiency testing in English and in any software that you would require for them to be able to do the job well. So we deploy all of those. And before you even get to meet the top three candidates, which is kind of the step one, before you onboard a particular remote professional, you get to interview the top three. Three. We make sure that they're all basically have checked out and that they've performed the tests and that they've passed those tests. The other thing that also makes us different from other outsourcing companies is our experience is custom and it's more white glove. And so it is still surprising that some of our clients also get amazed by our onboarding program because they don't just dump their problems and their task list to us and then we'll present a va to them. We really understand what their goals are, what their success metrics are. And for each contract or for each new person that we hire, it is custom. We don't have a pool of people and then you can just choose from this pool. We hire according to what you Definitely need. Normally it takes two to three weeks to get to the perfect person, but if we need more time, your CSM will let you know. Because it's more important for us to deliver the right person for you and not just follow a particular timeline just because.
And so some of our clients have experiences of this hiring procedure taking more than three weeks. We always are open about it to them, we always communicate it. And if they become too antsy and they want a refund, and everyone's entitled to a full refund before they start their subscription. So it doesn't matter how much work we put into it. What really matters to us is your experience. And that is our promise of an excellent service.
Your client success manager is also going to have an ongoing development plan. So it doesn't mean that because you're done onboarding that they'll just leave you alone.
They will be coaching your remote professional in their role for them to be better in their role. So if they are say a client facing role, they will have accent training or ongoing training about say B2B communication or B2B sales, or they will have a certain certification program that they have to go through. So for example, all of our project managers and operations managers have to go through yellow, white, yellow and green lean green belt Six Sigma certifications, which are very highly rated project management certification programs. So those are just examples of how we develop kind of plans to really make sure that your RP is not only doing the job, but also doing their best to improve in the role that they're in so that they can deliver higher level of service and better results for you.
And lastly, I would love to share our amazing benefits program. I always brag about this because I haven't met any other outsourcing company that can beat our benefits program. So all of our teammates have life, private life and accident insurance. They have health care, they have telemedicine access, they have a lot of other wellness benefits like mental health counseling and. And of course we also take care of the corny HR stuff like their birthday gifts, Christmas parties, Christmas gifts, we send them gifts on your behalf. We also have ongoing personal development and skills development workshops that are open to everyone. And sometimes we even open it literally to everyone. We just publish a public zoom and other people from other companies are open to join them. And so a lot of our following online, you know, also sign up for these programs because they get to learn something new. We're super proud of that. We're super proud of developing this ongoing culture of personal development and skills development in the company.
And with that said, I want to share our core values. So these are our six core values and we also have our everyday philosophy. So so our core values are integrity, accuracy and efficiency. Kaizen or the principle of continuous improvement. High level of accountability. And my two favorite ones.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Number five is love and protect the customer. And number six is love and protect your teammates. We are super proud of these core values because I personally believe that every problem in the company can be traced to to a core value not being practiced. So we always emphasize this. We always praise people according to the core value. It's just an amazing way to really tie a team together and make them believe in a common goal and for them to be inspired to contribute to the team and better themselves. We also have 10 everyday philosophies which are kind of simplified ways to remember what we're expecting expected to do as we work.
So number one is winners, not whiners. We also have be reasonable.
Sometimes there are certain arguments and people are not reasonable. So we added that to our everyday philosophy. We only do data driven decisions that are empirical, accurate and meritocratic. We hire and develop the best. We also borrow that from the Amazon leadership culture and and Amazon's leadership principles. Bring positive energy to work. You know, sometimes even if you're super busy, if you just bring a positive and smiley energy, then you're in a better state of mind to achieve what you want to achieve. Be kind. Kindness trumps all frugality and smart resourcefulness. Honesty is still the best policy. Bring a spirit of gratitude to work. And lastly, your purpose is bigger than your ego. And so I'm super proud to share all of this and I'm super proud of the work we do and I'm super proud of my team. I'm super proud of what we've built and I really, really am so honored to share all of this with you. So, looking forward to working together. If you want to check us out, check out. Visit proximityoutsourcing.com and get in touch with us by booking a time at our calendar. You'll see it on the upper right corner. So. So I'll see you soon. Looking forward to working together.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: This mini podcast is sponsored by brands under Proximity Solutions LLC.
Visit our websites at proximityoutsourcing.com, proximityplacements.com and proximityprojects.com.
