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00:00

Hey there, my friends this is Ted, your friend and host speaking and welcome back to the business show the best place for extra advice for entrepreneurs. On today’s show we have outsourcing for success with Kevin Nash Croft. Now Kevin Ashcroft is a serial entrepreneur and author of the book of sourcing for success after he sold his first business that he grew for 20 years, but he started at the age of 19.

 

To a UK telecommunications company, Kevin decided to start building businesses that are not location dependent by successfully outsourcing key tasks to freelance consultants from around the world. In his new book, Kevin shares his best tips and experiences to ensure that you too, can be outsourcing for success.

 

In today’s episode, Kevin shares the benefits of outsourcing, how you can protect your business, even when you do outsource your tasks to freelance consultants, and how you can do an entire business with outsourcing as the core feature of the business model.

 

Now, guys, if you’ve ever received any value from the show, or love, if you could show some support, subscribe to the show, share the show if somebody will find it useful as well. And leave a review on Apple podcasts. Now buckle up, strap down, you’re in for a ride. Hey, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

 

01:08

Thanks, Jared. A pleasure to be in the show. Thanks for the invite.

 

01:10

So Kevin, could you share with us so we can get to know you better? Who is Kevin Ashcroft when he isn’t working? So Kevin

 

01:17

Ashcroft is an extremely bad golfer. I think my friends like to see, when I play golf, I like to use the full width of the course. And get incredible value for money out of my game. So yes, I’m very bad at golf. I’m in the process of taking tennis lessons so that me and my wife can start playing tennis together.

Yeah. So that’s going to be a new a new hobby. Apart from that, you know, spend the time away spending time with the kids chasing my dog around the garden, and spending time with friends. Yeah, that’s that’s probably encapsulates

 

02:02

the basics. You’re currently located in Spain if I’m not wrong,

 

02:05

yeah, we’re down in the south coast. Yeah, we’re down in the south coast and between Malaga and Marbella. So it’s a beautiful part of the world. A little bit a little bit warmer than the home country of Scotland.

 

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. So at sur, it’s been a good place. We’ve been here for years now. So we’re enjoying it, the kids are enjoying it. It’s been a good move.

 

02:27

Lovely. Thanks for sharing. Kevin. Now, Kevin, you are perhaps most well known for Stan, you’re an IT company at the age of 19 called OCD. And you eventually exited OCD with the sale of it through a UK telecommunications company. Now can you share about what OCD was about what the exit was like for you?

 

02:44

Yes. So the company was built over over 20 years. As you said, it was something I started myself at the age of an age of 19 years old. It started at a part time basis whilst I was working for a company which was my first proper full time job.

 

Really, really good company at that time, good people to work for, and then you, obviously that I was I was running was actually running my business part time whilst working for them, getting to know about business, and you know, and everything that it entails. And as my side of the business grew, the director set a conversation with me around the fact that I needed to make a decision. And that decision was whether I did my thing, or whether I did their thing, because they could see is beginning to have a bit of an impact.

 

And so I spent, you know, seven or eight seconds thinking about it. And I said to the director at that time, Robin, this is Robin, I’d like to do my thing. And that really started the next phase of the business where I rented a room from that business with a little brown desk and a telephone. I think it was in November. I didn’t do a huge amount between then and Christmas in New Year. And then very quickly realized that I needed to, I needed to get into action and I needed to build the business and I needed to generate income.

 

And so in that January, that really started the momentum for the business and I grew that over over 20 years. That was a was a wonderful experience. You know, looking back on it, it was it would be a business that I should have sold earlier than I did. Yeah, you know, I you know, I enjoyed the business. But I had kind of had for I guess fallen out of love with the business because it wasn’t hugely different. Over over the years. We were a Microsoft gold partner, we provided infrastructure services. In consultation, and we installed servers, and we did all the support and maintenance and, you know, we had a really good reputation and lots of long term clients, and a good a good team in place. But, you know, looking back on it, I know that I was looking for other challenges. And you know, if I was to do

 

again, I would change, I would have changed the process, I would change how long I was in the business, I would have changed the structure of it, but hindsight as as a wonderful thing. And you know, we were wonderful clients over those years and great team members, but 20 years was just a wee bit too long. And, you know, I would, I would, I would make that decision earlier. If I could go back and talk to myself.

 

05:49

Now, Kevin, given that invoice, your first business, and he spent 20 years with it, it’s not easy to walk away with something that you grew for such a long period of time. Yeah, I also think that there are two kinds of entrepreneurs, there’s some entrepreneurs who tend to stick with the companies that they do for life. And they’re also entrepreneurs with the sole intention of building multiple companies to get

 

successful, and to achieve a meaningful exit and move on to the next learning opportunity. Kevin, you clearly fall into the latter, since you are working on two other companies right now, which we can come back later to talk about. But Kevin, I would like to speak to you about the book that you wrote, because you spoke about how you were thinking about improving the processes for your experience in OCD. Now, I’m aware that you recently wrote a book called outsourcing for success. And I noticed book is

 

based heavily on your own experiences, after you said OCD, where you wanted to build businesses that were not so location dependent. So could you share with us in your own words, what was this book about? And why would the experience that went into this book?

 

06:45

Yes. So you know, when I exited the IT business, I decided that my next business or businesses, I didn’t want them to be the same traditional types of businesses. And what I mean by that is, I didn’t want them to, you know, have a static office. Yeah, I didn’t want to have a team of people and the one office or multiple offices, that were all full time staff

 

07:10

and equipment in the service, right, completely

 

07:12

the whole bet. And you know that there’s various reasons for that. So I made that decision at that point. And that started me on a on a journey of outsourcing, where I started to look for team members based around the world and the UK as well, to be honest, but you know, the reach of the marketplaces is so

 

far and wide, that it just leads you and you know, immediately to look at options that you wouldn’t have done before. And that really started my outsourcing journey. And we’ve used that, to build the business to build team members to build a lot of specialists in the business. But we’ve also used it to, to create

 

another route to market and to also win more business for us and more projects for us. So essentially worked wonderfully hand in hand by allowing me to build the team and bring in specialists. And it’s also allowed me to find business and countries and locations that would have been significantly more

 

difficult with the type of business that had and the infrastructure that I had. So it’s when it’s went well for for both different reasons.

 

08:24

So Kevin, you have 10 years of experience with outsourcing before you actually wrote this book. Could you share with us some of the tips or the experiences that you share in the book as well? Yeah, basically,

 

08:32

Ted. So the, you know, that the book is, is designed to give insight to people who maybe have had a bad experience of outsourcing or no experience of outsourcing. And it’s there to tell them, if you’ve had a bad experience, you know, you can turn into a good one. And here’s some strategies and tips and

 

processes that you can put in place to to make that far more likely. And it’s there also, hopefully, to give a window to people who haven’t considered that or don’t think it’s right for them, or who just don’t think it will work and the type of business to show them that there is a way that is an option. And it’s not

 

necessarily about trying to say to people, you should outsource everything in your business. For some people that may be the answer and great. And that’s the way it’s worked for, you know, for me and my businesses, and that’s been wonderful. But for other businesses, it may be that you outsource one

 

possession or you outsource a few possessions, or you you know, you build another team to back up your existing mentee either way, yeah, there’s lots of ways to take advantage of it. It doesn’t need to be a, you know, an and or, you know, it can’t you know, it can cover both different ways. So, you know, I’ve written that book in order to take people through what the what the potential is But also to take them

 

through a process that saves them the mistakes that I’ve made over 10 years. And so that hopefully makes their makes their experience of outsourcing easier. Hopefully, it makes it better, hopefully, you know, means that the want to do more, and they’ll get better results. And it can be quicker for the rather

 

than all the things that I went through the mistakes I’ve made, the good things have done, you know, the systems have built, the processes were put in place. So that’s hopefully what the book will do for people.

 

10:36

Now, Kevin, when you actually started, you know, thinking so deeply about outsourcing in about 2011 2012. This is 10 years, you know, before COVID was a thing. And remote working became huge around the world. So I would say that you had a lot of foresight, because you were doing this a decade

 

before most people, you know, we’ve been thinking about this whole process. Now I know you spoke a little bit about the benefits of working with, you know, outsource consultants. But let’s dive in a little bit deeper on this point. Can you explain to us the difference between the benefits of working with

 

outsource consultants, as opposed to the traditional model of having full time employees? What in your view? Are the pros and cons?

 

11:12

Yeah, that’s a good question. So I think for me, if I was to talk about the pros, the pros of doing it this way it said it would, it would be things like flexibility. So it’s significantly easier to use the services of a specialist for a short amount of time, this for as much time as you want. And but but also importantly, as

 

much time as they want to give. So you know that that may be that you know that there’s a type of specialist, you only need to do something for your clients once a month, for instance, and that may only be a two or three hour job. So you don’t need that skill set and the business, you can easily outsource that and bring in someone who’s really good at that, and you know, will deliver a great end result and a

 

great end product for you. The converse of that I tend to find in traditional businesses is often team members, particularly if business is a little bit slower, a little bit quiet. often they’ll get tasked with things that they are not professional, and they have no skill, they have no skills or experience and they’re left completely and you know, the the manager or the director or the owner, the partner, whoever, who you

 

know who’s passed that task on to someone to, you know, to keep the working to keep them doing something often could be upset or frustrated by the result that that team member brings. And really, it’s an unfair situation because the team member hasn’t been trained on it, or they aren’t skilled and or

 

maybe they’re just not interested in it. So I find that being able to reach out to get specialists to do things gives you a much better result, first time, generally on time. The the way a lot of people look at outsourcing is often they think it’s all about saving costs, the you know the fingers of it saving money, it’s bringing someone in from another country where their hourly rate is significantly less. But what I find

 

is, it’s not, for me, certainly, it’s not about that, sometimes that as an advantage. But for me, it’s about finding a specialist who’s really good at what they do, and can deliver the result that you need. So that’s that’s one of the advantages of phones. Another thing is, you know, you can have people completing tasks while you’re asleep, or while you’re out of hours,

 

13:43

you know, the benefit of having people in different time zones never really occurred to me

 

13:47

completely. Yeah, so you know, if you’ve got someone working at the, you know, at the other side of the world, then you know, they’re working in their timezone, and there was a time that suits them. And they can be completing tasks. That means when you hand them over at the end of your day, you wake

 

up the next morning, and you wake up to something really nice, not a big list of to dues, but a big list of here are things that have been done. And you know, I find that is a is a wonderful advantage of the outsourcing world. So

 

14:19

guys, as Kevin has just shared, some of the benefits of outsourcing your work to specialist consultants is precisely the idea that you are having a specialist working on that task. And because they’re so trained and specialized in their specific tasks, they’re going to be a lot more cost efficient and time

 

efficient, as compared to a traditional model where an employee is tasked to do a job that he’s not very skilled at, and he may not deliver the best results for you. And on top of that the possibility of getting people who are working in different time zones who can complete tasks while you are asleep. I think

 

there’s a real game changer. You can’t really do that when all your employees are with you in the same time zone. So this idea of working with outsource consultants, or working in different time zones and completing tasks while you are Sleep could be a really powerful way to make your business a lot more

 

efficient. Now, Kevin, what about the cons of the outsourcing arrangement? Yeah, so

 

15:07

that’s the cons are, you need to understand that it is different. And by different I mean, you know, a lot of people need that face to face contact, they need to know that you need the person and the room,

 

you know, that that’s the only way that they’re used to work. And they think that having someone that’s remote, who they’ve never met, face to face and shit, you know, shook their hand or whatever it may be. They find that as an impossible proposition for the business. That’s not

 

15:40

the case anymore in today’s will, I guess,

 

15:42

well, well, not. Not really. But I think what what, you know, what are feigned there is, you know, it’s approved under corn. So the corn is, particularly if you’re dealing with someone from another country that maybe the first language isn’t, you know, speaking to someone from the UK, maybe their first first

 

language isn’t English. But they may they may have good English, they may have good English, but not fantastic English. So the question there is, for someone in a traditional business with someone next to them, they may be able to kind of rattle off a quick list of do this, do that, here’s how I want this to look.

 

And that’s an easier situation. The corn with that with a remote person is you need to put a bit more time into explaining, you need to be better at delegating. So you know, you need to describe things better outline, it better, be clear on what the goal is what you expect to happen at the end of this. So

 

that can take a little bit more time. But for me, that’s actually got a pro status as well, because it makes me better.

 

16:49

Yeah, I guess in a way, it forces you to be more efficient and effective in the way you communicate. But then again, this problem will probably apply to whether you’re outsourcing your work, or if you’re facing your employees on Delete day basis. Yeah.

 

17:01

100%. But again, I think what I would say that as well starts the case that can happen in a traditional business, when you work with someone for six months or three years, if you give them tasks that, you know, aren’t their main remit aren’t the thing that you know that they do day to day. So that can happen

 

both ways. And personally, I’ve experienced that both ways, you know. So I think, you know, that’s, you know, that would be a chord outsourcing. But there’s pros built into that as well in the similar things and the traditional business that that, you know, that work in the same way.

 

17:39

Will you agree? Now, Kevin, you know, as mergers and acquisitions, Laurie, myself, one of the key considerations that we think about when we’re talking about outsourcing arrangements with consultants is whether that individual that you’re working with is truly an outsource consultant, or are they supposed

 

to be classified as an employee. So depending on the jurisdictions that you’re working with, there could be that risk of a mis classification of an individual being a consultant, as opposed to an employee. So if an individual supposed to be classified as an employee, there’ll be additional tax risk, and employee immune rights that are supposed to be entitled to under the law. So I think, of course, this would be

 

highly dependent on the jurisdictions that are working with, as I said, but I think something that we really should highlight to the listeners is that if they do take outsourcing very seriously, and they’re considering building a business around it, or if they want to build a business towards it, is that they actually should speak to their own legal and tax advisers on this basis, to really get clarity on how you can structure this properly to make sure that they’re in compliance with the law in my right

 

18:38

100% said, and it’s a great point, you know, like anything you do in business, you need to ensure you’re doing it the right way, particularly, if there are legal ramifications, you know, these, these things are becoming a lot more clear now, as as countries and governments and, and so on, get more used to the

 

freelancer model in the gig economy. And, you know, and, and the whole outsourcing thing, because it’s, it’s come on leaps and bounds from from where it was even, you know, a couple of years ago, potentially, because of the COVID thing, you know, that it’s made people look operating a different way. So it’s important to look into that your own your own country, your own jurisdiction, and make sure that whatever you’re doing, you understand the ramifications of that.

 

19:25

So guys, wherever you are in the world, while outsourcing can be a very powerful way that you can improve the efficiency of your business. Please do take the time to think about whether you should be speaking to your own legal and tax advisor on the way that you’re going to structure this because you

 

want to make sure that whatever you do, you’re in compliance with your jurisdictions laws. Now back to you, Kevin, could you share verse, where do you actually go to find good consultants to help you with your own businesses?

 

19:48

Yes, so we look at we look through quite a lot of the marketplaces that are mentioned in the book. You know, one of the one of the top ones that we use is up work. Probably alongside that would be free up. And freelancer, probably, they will probably be the top three sites that we use for people at work being the main one are those and work as a as a huge organization. Now it’s listed, you know, it’s a listed

 

company in us the number of freelancers and the number of clients on there is as enormous and there’s even, you know, there’s enterprise clients on there like Microsoft and Airbnb and, and others who source talent around the world to find for their projects for ongoing work. So that is a particularly

 

good marketplaces, it’s very mature now. The ability to be able to search based on very specific criteria for freelancers is, is wonderful. So, you know, we use those marketplaces, we also get recommendations from existing team members, who mentioned, you know, whether it be a friend or an

 

acquaintance or someone else that you know, that they know, if there’s openings for them to join the team, and in some shape, or form, but certainly, for the last 10 years, 11 years, then that’s, that’s been the main route to us for talent.

 

21:25

great tips, Kevin. Now let’s talk about the process of onboarding new consultants into the business, a key part of ensuring that the relationship between the consultant is a good working one is to actually make sure that their expectations are set right at the start, could you share with us some tips on how you do this for your own business?

 

21:40

Yeah, so I think the even going a stage before that, before you do the onboarding, is working as hard as possible that this depends on what the rule is. So the, you know, the amount of time and the amount of an onboarding process that you do with a freelancer is quite specific to the role they have. And what I

 

mean by that is, you know, if you’re bringing in someone to design a logo for you, then you don’t really need to go through an onboarding process. You know, if it’s a one off job, you know, and it’s very specific, and here’s the project, and this is what we need, and this is deliverable, then you don’t need to go through onboarding them into the organization of the business. It’s good to give them information

 

about you know, culture, your business, and what the business is about, and the vision and all that after being creative and doing something creative. But you don’t need to onboard them into the business, where you have someone maybe a virtual assistant, or a web developer, or a financial person, or you

 

know, something where they’re going to be a core part of the business, maybe the good ebn, 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week, then you need to look at your onboarding process there. So I think the step back from that, as you know, you make sure as much as possible through the interview process, you’re really clear on what you need, you’re really clear on your expectations, that over and

 

above the fact that they fit the skill set, that you make sure that a really good fit for your culture, because of the not a good fit for your culture, and they’re going to be within the team and they’re going to be a core part of the team, then ultimately, there’ll be a break down somewhere, because people generally are what they are. And you know, people have their own their own mindset and their own

 

ways of working and you know, the type of people they like to be around. And again, one of those huge benefits of this enormous marketplace knows, it’s easier to find people who are actually going to be a better fit for you. So make sure you get the culture part, right. When you just shoot as possible, and you

 

can’t always be 100% certain, because I always look at I think for years and years, I’ve always looked at interviews more like an audition. You know, it’s someone who comes in and plays a part of who they think you want them to be. I think that’s also beginning to change a bit. No, because freelancers have a lot more power to select the clients they want, and not just take any particular job. Yeah. So

 

24:24

when you say that the bargaining power has shifted, you know,

 

24:27

it’s it’s, it’s much better aligns, because there’s more choice. So again, you know, that, for instance, the marketplaces and we’re touching up work again, an awful lot of the freelancers on there would actually be looking for jobs and applying to jobs, the jobs will become into them, because they’re so highly

 

rated. That as a client, when you do a search, you see the profile, you see the past jobs, you see the reviews, you see the total earnings, how long they’ve been in the platform. You think that’s a really good guy. That’s a really you know, that’s really Get out, I want to get them on the team. So you know

 

that that balance has changed a bit with the freelancer model, I think so you get them on board, you hope they’re a good fit for your culture. And then you make sure that the systems and processes are in place, you can you can give them, they can understand how you do things. Why importantly, as well,

 

why you do things, what results you’re expecting, you’re trained them on the systems you use, often, you’ll find that they’re already trained, and systems like maybe a project management system that you use, because they’re so you’re so widely used now given again, the outsourcing and freelance model.

 

So you make sure they’ve got access to your processes, your systems, why you do things, and you make sure that you’re you closely monitor them. And that initial period when the command to make sure you’re there to answer any questions to make sure they’re doing the right things, and to give them

 

importantly, the best chance of success as possible. Because when you do that, then you’ll get the best chance of success, and your clients and your business have the best chance of success.

 

26:07

So guys, as Kevin has just shared, it’s important to make sure that when you’re onboarding a reliance consultant into your business, that you set the expectations, right, you check if they meet their

 

qualifications that you need, if they fit in your culture, because you want to make sure that they are a good fit for you and your company. Now, Kevin, one of the key concerns that an entrepreneur may have is that their concern that the outsource consultant could actually post declines that they have, was this ever a concern for you? And if so, how have you managed this in the past?

 

26:36

Yeah, so I mentioned that in the book, Ted, and it’s a good question again. So, you know, as a reality, yes. 100% as a reality and our traditional business as well, yes, 100%. What I can tell you from

experience of doing both, is that, as far as I’m aware, and you know, 10 or 11 years, I’ve been doing outsourcing, I don’t have any recollection of any knowledge, it’s probably a better but I don’t have any

 

knowledge of anyone I’ve hired, try to go to Rei direct to one of my clients. I can tell you that, you know, the opposite of that is in the traditional business. I’ve had people who have left, who went on to start other businesses, and who have 100% tried to contact not tried, who have contacted clients and tried to poach them, you know, over the years, you know, if I look back at the IT business, you know, that’s

 

happened several times with technical staff of hard and sales, people will find ads. And, and all that time, I believe we’ve had one client who has went with those people. And looking at that in detail that was not a client that I or the senior management had any real connection with. And therefore, the bond was a lot was a lot less than it was with the rest of our clients. So you know why would see that as, as a

 

concern, but it can happen, and traditional and remote businesses, I would, I would suggest that the key there as much as possible is to make sure that you are your CRM senior management team, if you’re a bigger business, and you’re using outsourcing, that you have, you know, a super strong relationship with your clients, which you should do anyway. Yeah, you know that, that should just be a

 

basic business. So that if one of these freelancers or a member of the team tries to make contact and tries to poach them, that they’re likely to be rebuffed. You can use things like nondisclosure agreements, and non compete agreements and so on. And we’ve had them you know, I’ve had them in traditional business, I have them No, and the remote set up there. Do the work. You know, I think if the person is in the same country as your same jurisdiction as you then it’s easier. Yeah, it has a lot more teeth. Yeah, it’s easier to enforce that. If you’re in UK and you’re dealing with someone in the

 

Philippines or Argentina or even though probably, you know, Spain, since you know, your, you know, the UK is of European Union, then it would be more difficult and more costly. And so you need to take a pragmatic approaches to, you know, what follow through, you would have if something like that happens, but it also takes you I guess, back a step, where you need to think about how do you protect

 

your business? How do you protect your IP, how do you protect the rest of the information and your clients and all of that and again, I think that a watch Sade makes you think about those things a bit more, and therefore, it makes Should be a bit of business person. And it makes you set up better processes procedures, and it makes you strengthen your business, possibly better than then you would have done had you not used this as a route to market as talent.

 

30:13

So guys, if one of the constants that you have about outsourcing is the possibility of your consultants that reporting your existing clients, this one, because what happened with your own employees, as Kevin has shared, the best way to combat this is to make sure that you have a good strong relationship with your clients. And if your relationship is actually strong enough, your clients could actually be telling you that one of your employees or consultants is trying to push them away. And of course, another way

 

is to make sure that you have the right legal documents in place to protect your relationship with your clients. So depending on the jurisdiction that you’re doing business in, make sure you reach out to the right legal advisors so you can get help on this process as well. So Kevin, now let’s talk a little bit about

 

the two companies they are running right now. I know one of the companies is called liquid media, which is a media agency focused on online marketing and promotional videos for clients, and WordPress support specialists, which is an agency focused on providing it support for WordPress websites. Now, could you share with us how you’ve built these two companies around the idea of outsourcing? And how has the concept of outsourcing contributed to their growth?

 

31:12

Yes, so they are 100% focused on using outsourced talent. You know, as well as hopefully my own talent, yes, that worked for myself. So you know, so that’s, that’s exactly how those businesses have grown. Blink of media, we build marketing strategies, we create content, you know, whether that’s written content, often blog posts, or PR articles, we, we create social media, posts and content for clients. And by the natural extension of that, we create short videos that go along with those pieces of

 

content. And we do, and we offer graphic design services for the brochures and infographics and that type of thing. In times gone past, we offer more services, but we’ve scaled that down to be specific at the things that we really like to do we enjoy to do you a nice down completely. And so, and the flip of that, WP Support Specialist is effectively a one stop shop for all things WordPress, where we will rebuild WordPress websites, we provide support, maintenance, management, hosting, optimization, all

 

of those things that wrap around the WordPress ecosystem. And so we have some members of the team who can have span across both businesses. And we have some who are very specific to finances WP support spaces where we have WordPress, support technical staff. And, you know, that’s what they do they provide the support and maintenance and care for our clients who have support agreements with us, for instance. So yeah, you know, every one of those in the team are, are their own victims are

 

their own boss, the freelancers. And they’re, they’re based around the world. So we have people in Argentina, Portugal, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, we have even doing as far as the Philippines, probably a couple of other places. But that’s the you know, that’s the that’s the main kind of cohort of the people in the team. So Kevin

 

33:27

is ready to see from day one, when you start both companies, you wanted outsourcing to play a key part in the way that the business is run

 

33:33

100%. And you know that that’s helped us as well, because, you know, particularly in the support business, we provide support for clients across the globe

 

33:43

in a 24 hour service they were talking about, right? Completely Yes, so of

 

33:47

clients, Australia, clients in America, clients in Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Far East. And so, obviously, they operate at different times of the day that get different needs. And you know, sometimes you need something done at a time, that would be 1am, for me, traditionally, but we have people there

 

who can provide that service. So having created the business that way, it’s worked really well, because we build in clients from the marketplaces, as well as hiring from them. And it’s just been a wonderful thing.

 

34:19

Now, Kevin, before I let you go, I’d like to talk to you a little bit more about your passion behind mentoring others. So previously, you mentored in Project Scotland, and entrepreneurs spark weren’t mentoring projects. Are you up to these days?

 

34:32

Yes. So at the moment, I’ve scaled that back because we’re working very specifically, and the two businesses at the moment to remove me from a lot of the day to day things, so that I can work more on the strategy of the businesses and also look at what the next stage is, whether that be another book, which is would be focused on the flip of the first book, so it’d be more fun Capstone the freelancer

 

rather than the business meeting agenda? Yeah, yeah, hopefully saw. The the mentoring side has been scaled back at the moment. But from the start of 2022, we’ll be offering actually, is as part of making or giving back process where we’ll be offering free mentorship for up to four people for six months at a time. And it’s really designed for people who are new to business, you’re starting a

 

business, or getting into a business for the first time, or who are maybe a little bit stuck in their business, and they need some support there. So that’s going to, that’s actually going to be a free mentoring service that I’m going to offer, which really is just about giving back into the business community. Because, you know, if I think back to when I when I was a young guy at 19 years old, I

 

would absolutely have loved to have that type of that type of facility, you know, that type of person, something there that could help me answer the questions and progress much faster

 

36:08

than I did, and to help you avoid the mistakes that you may

 

36:11

completely Yes, you know, suffered a lot less pain and the process of building that first business. So that will kick in early January 2022, when there’s actually a bit more time there that I can that I can give to that properly.

 

36:27

And it’s there. Now Kevin, if the listeners on your mobile one thing from today’s conversation, where would you like it to be,

 

36:32

I think I would like it to be the outsourcing as a wonderful route to the market to either grow a business from scratch, you know, with with no other talent, or to complement a business that you already have. You don’t need to think of it as something that is only for certain types of businesses, it can work for

 

any type of business. So I would say open your eyes to look into it. Try it, try it small. outsource some small tasks, some little things that won’t have any negative impact in your business or really your time or your existing team. Give it a try. See how it works for you. Ideally, you have read the book, outsourcing for success in order to guide you through that process and make it work for you as good as it possibly can. Yeah, I think that would be that would be the main point I would want to leave with.

 

37:32

So how can our listeners get in contact with you if they need your help? Or if they want to work with you?

 

37:37

Yes, so you know FSR owns outsourcing, learning more about it, how to use it in your business, those types of things then they can contact me on kev ashcroft.com if they need to talk about their WordPress website or anything related to that, then they can contact us at WP Support Specialist COMM And if

 

they’re interested or want to talk about any marketing, then they can contact us via LinkedIn media.com

 

38:08

now Thank you, Kevin, all your website links will definitely be shared on the episode page yourself. So listeners if you guys want to get in touch with Kevin, make sure you jump on to the episode page and you can get all the resources you need. Now Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today sharing

 

your stories and your expertise, making outsourcing so much more accessible for everybody. Thank you for joining us today.

 

38:29

It’s been a pleasure Ted. Thank you

 

38:31

guys. Thank you so much for joining Kevin I on today’s conversation. I hope you’ve learned something if you’re keen to learn more about outsourcing there make sure you check out Kevin’s book outsourcing for success. Now all links tools and resources are available on my website to.com that’s t EDT COMM

 

And if you subscribe to our email list, then you receive all the latest resources right in your email inbox. If you’ve ever received any value from the show, I would love if you could show your support. Share the show with somebody who find it useful as well subscribe or follow to the show and leave a review on Apple podcasts. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you on the internet. This is Ted Teo, signing off.

[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:00

Hey there, my friends this is Ted, your friend and host speaking and welcome back to the business show the best place for extra advice for entrepreneurs. On today’s show we have outsourcing for success with Kevin Nash Croft. Now Kevin Ashcroft is a serial entrepreneur and author of the book of sourcing for success after he sold his first business that he grew for 20 years, but he started at the age of 19.

 

To a UK telecommunications company, Kevin decided to start building businesses that are not location dependent by successfully outsourcing key tasks to freelance consultants from around the world. In his new book, Kevin shares his best tips and experiences to ensure that you too, can be outsourcing for success.

 

In today’s episode, Kevin shares the benefits of outsourcing, how you can protect your business, even when you do outsource your tasks to freelance consultants, and how you can do an entire business with outsourcing as the core feature of the business model.

 

Now, guys, if you’ve ever received any value from the show, or love, if you could show some support, subscribe to the show, share the show if somebody will find it useful as well. And leave a review on Apple podcasts. Now buckle up, strap down, you’re in for a ride. Hey, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

 

01:08

Thanks, Jared. A pleasure to be in the show. Thanks for the invite.

 

01:10

So Kevin, could you share with us so we can get to know you better? Who is Kevin Ashcroft when he isn’t working? So Kevin

 

01:17

Ashcroft is an extremely bad golfer. I think my friends like to see, when I play golf, I like to use the full width of the course. And get incredible value for money out of my game. So yes, I’m very bad at golf. I’m in the process of taking tennis lessons so that me and my wife can start playing tennis together.

Yeah. So that’s going to be a new a new hobby. Apart from that, you know, spend the time away spending time with the kids chasing my dog around the garden, and spending time with friends. Yeah, that’s that’s probably encapsulates

 

02:02

the basics. You’re currently located in Spain if I’m not wrong,

 

02:05

yeah, we’re down in the south coast. Yeah, we’re down in the south coast and between Malaga and Marbella. So it’s a beautiful part of the world. A little bit a little bit warmer than the home country of Scotland.

 

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. So at sur, it’s been a good place. We’ve been here for years now. So we’re enjoying it, the kids are enjoying it. It’s been a good move.

 

02:27

Lovely. Thanks for sharing. Kevin. Now, Kevin, you are perhaps most well known for Stan, you’re an IT company at the age of 19 called OCD. And you eventually exited OCD with the sale of it through a UK telecommunications company. Now can you share about what OCD was about what the exit was like for you?

 

02:44

Yes. So the company was built over over 20 years. As you said, it was something I started myself at the age of an age of 19 years old. It started at a part time basis whilst I was working for a company which was my first proper full time job.

 

Really, really good company at that time, good people to work for, and then you, obviously that I was I was running was actually running my business part time whilst working for them, getting to know about business, and you know, and everything that it entails. And as my side of the business grew, the director set a conversation with me around the fact that I needed to make a decision. And that decision was whether I did my thing, or whether I did their thing, because they could see is beginning to have a bit of an impact.

 

And so I spent, you know, seven or eight seconds thinking about it. And I said to the director at that time, Robin, this is Robin, I’d like to do my thing. And that really started the next phase of the business where I rented a room from that business with a little brown desk and a telephone. I think it was in November. I didn’t do a huge amount between then and Christmas in New Year. And then very quickly realized that I needed to, I needed to get into action and I needed to build the business and I needed to generate income.

 

And so in that January, that really started the momentum for the business and I grew that over over 20 years. That was a was a wonderful experience. You know, looking back on it, it was it would be a business that I should have sold earlier than I did. Yeah, you know, I you know, I enjoyed the business. But I had kind of had for I guess fallen out of love with the business because it wasn’t hugely different. Over over the years. We were a Microsoft gold partner, we provided infrastructure services. In consultation, and we installed servers, and we did all the support and maintenance and, you know, we had a really good reputation and lots of long term clients, and a good a good team in place. But, you know, looking back on it, I know that I was looking for other challenges. And you know, if I was to do

 

again, I would change, I would have changed the process, I would change how long I was in the business, I would have changed the structure of it, but hindsight as as a wonderful thing. And you know, we were wonderful clients over those years and great team members, but 20 years was just a wee bit too long. And, you know, I would, I would, I would make that decision earlier. If I could go back and talk to myself.

 

05:49

Now, Kevin, given that invoice, your first business, and he spent 20 years with it, it’s not easy to walk away with something that you grew for such a long period of time. Yeah, I also think that there are two kinds of entrepreneurs, there’s some entrepreneurs who tend to stick with the companies that they do for life. And they’re also entrepreneurs with the sole intention of building multiple companies to get

 

successful, and to achieve a meaningful exit and move on to the next learning opportunity. Kevin, you clearly fall into the latter, since you are working on two other companies right now, which we can come back later to talk about. But Kevin, I would like to speak to you about the book that you wrote, because you spoke about how you were thinking about improving the processes for your experience in OCD. Now, I’m aware that you recently wrote a book called outsourcing for success. And I noticed book is

 

based heavily on your own experiences, after you said OCD, where you wanted to build businesses that were not so location dependent. So could you share with us in your own words, what was this book about? And why would the experience that went into this book?

 

06:45

Yes. So you know, when I exited the IT business, I decided that my next business or businesses, I didn’t want them to be the same traditional types of businesses. And what I mean by that is, I didn’t want them to, you know, have a static office. Yeah, I didn’t want to have a team of people and the one office or multiple offices, that were all full time staff

 

07:10

and equipment in the service, right, completely

 

07:12

the whole bet. And you know that there’s various reasons for that. So I made that decision at that point. And that started me on a on a journey of outsourcing, where I started to look for team members based around the world and the UK as well, to be honest, but you know, the reach of the marketplaces is so

 

far and wide, that it just leads you and you know, immediately to look at options that you wouldn’t have done before. And that really started my outsourcing journey. And we’ve used that, to build the business to build team members to build a lot of specialists in the business. But we’ve also used it to, to create

 

another route to market and to also win more business for us and more projects for us. So essentially worked wonderfully hand in hand by allowing me to build the team and bring in specialists. And it’s also allowed me to find business and countries and locations that would have been significantly more

 

difficult with the type of business that had and the infrastructure that I had. So it’s when it’s went well for for both different reasons.

 

08:24

So Kevin, you have 10 years of experience with outsourcing before you actually wrote this book. Could you share with us some of the tips or the experiences that you share in the book as well? Yeah, basically,

 

08:32

Ted. So the, you know, that the book is, is designed to give insight to people who maybe have had a bad experience of outsourcing or no experience of outsourcing. And it’s there to tell them, if you’ve had a bad experience, you know, you can turn into a good one. And here’s some strategies and tips and

 

processes that you can put in place to to make that far more likely. And it’s there also, hopefully, to give a window to people who haven’t considered that or don’t think it’s right for them, or who just don’t think it will work and the type of business to show them that there is a way that is an option. And it’s not

 

necessarily about trying to say to people, you should outsource everything in your business. For some people that may be the answer and great. And that’s the way it’s worked for, you know, for me and my businesses, and that’s been wonderful. But for other businesses, it may be that you outsource one

 

possession or you outsource a few possessions, or you you know, you build another team to back up your existing mentee either way, yeah, there’s lots of ways to take advantage of it. It doesn’t need to be a, you know, an and or, you know, it can’t you know, it can cover both different ways. So, you know, I’ve written that book in order to take people through what the what the potential is But also to take them

 

through a process that saves them the mistakes that I’ve made over 10 years. And so that hopefully makes their makes their experience of outsourcing easier. Hopefully, it makes it better, hopefully, you know, means that the want to do more, and they’ll get better results. And it can be quicker for the rather

 

than all the things that I went through the mistakes I’ve made, the good things have done, you know, the systems have built, the processes were put in place. So that’s hopefully what the book will do for people.

 

10:36

Now, Kevin, when you actually started, you know, thinking so deeply about outsourcing in about 2011 2012. This is 10 years, you know, before COVID was a thing. And remote working became huge around the world. So I would say that you had a lot of foresight, because you were doing this a decade

 

before most people, you know, we’ve been thinking about this whole process. Now I know you spoke a little bit about the benefits of working with, you know, outsource consultants. But let’s dive in a little bit deeper on this point. Can you explain to us the difference between the benefits of working with

 

outsource consultants, as opposed to the traditional model of having full time employees? What in your view? Are the pros and cons?

 

11:12

Yeah, that’s a good question. So I think for me, if I was to talk about the pros, the pros of doing it this way it said it would, it would be things like flexibility. So it’s significantly easier to use the services of a specialist for a short amount of time, this for as much time as you want. And but but also importantly, as

 

much time as they want to give. So you know that that may be that you know that there’s a type of specialist, you only need to do something for your clients once a month, for instance, and that may only be a two or three hour job. So you don’t need that skill set and the business, you can easily outsource that and bring in someone who’s really good at that, and you know, will deliver a great end result and a

 

great end product for you. The converse of that I tend to find in traditional businesses is often team members, particularly if business is a little bit slower, a little bit quiet. often they’ll get tasked with things that they are not professional, and they have no skill, they have no skills or experience and they’re left completely and you know, the the manager or the director or the owner, the partner, whoever, who you

 

know who’s passed that task on to someone to, you know, to keep the working to keep them doing something often could be upset or frustrated by the result that that team member brings. And really, it’s an unfair situation because the team member hasn’t been trained on it, or they aren’t skilled and or

 

maybe they’re just not interested in it. So I find that being able to reach out to get specialists to do things gives you a much better result, first time, generally on time. The the way a lot of people look at outsourcing is often they think it’s all about saving costs, the you know the fingers of it saving money, it’s bringing someone in from another country where their hourly rate is significantly less. But what I find

 

is, it’s not, for me, certainly, it’s not about that, sometimes that as an advantage. But for me, it’s about finding a specialist who’s really good at what they do, and can deliver the result that you need. So that’s that’s one of the advantages of phones. Another thing is, you know, you can have people completing tasks while you’re asleep, or while you’re out of hours,

 

13:43

you know, the benefit of having people in different time zones never really occurred to me

 

13:47

completely. Yeah, so you know, if you’ve got someone working at the, you know, at the other side of the world, then you know, they’re working in their timezone, and there was a time that suits them. And they can be completing tasks. That means when you hand them over at the end of your day, you wake

 

up the next morning, and you wake up to something really nice, not a big list of to dues, but a big list of here are things that have been done. And you know, I find that is a is a wonderful advantage of the outsourcing world. So

 

14:19

guys, as Kevin has just shared, some of the benefits of outsourcing your work to specialist consultants is precisely the idea that you are having a specialist working on that task. And because they’re so trained and specialized in their specific tasks, they’re going to be a lot more cost efficient and time

 

efficient, as compared to a traditional model where an employee is tasked to do a job that he’s not very skilled at, and he may not deliver the best results for you. And on top of that the possibility of getting people who are working in different time zones who can complete tasks while you are asleep. I think

 

there’s a real game changer. You can’t really do that when all your employees are with you in the same time zone. So this idea of working with outsource consultants, or working in different time zones and completing tasks while you are Sleep could be a really powerful way to make your business a lot more

 

efficient. Now, Kevin, what about the cons of the outsourcing arrangement? Yeah, so

 

15:07

that’s the cons are, you need to understand that it is different. And by different I mean, you know, a lot of people need that face to face contact, they need to know that you need the person and the room,

 

you know, that that’s the only way that they’re used to work. And they think that having someone that’s remote, who they’ve never met, face to face and shit, you know, shook their hand or whatever it may be. They find that as an impossible proposition for the business. That’s not

 

15:40

the case anymore in today’s will, I guess,

 

15:42

well, well, not. Not really. But I think what what, you know, what are feigned there is, you know, it’s approved under corn. So the corn is, particularly if you’re dealing with someone from another country that maybe the first language isn’t, you know, speaking to someone from the UK, maybe their first first

 

language isn’t English. But they may they may have good English, they may have good English, but not fantastic English. So the question there is, for someone in a traditional business with someone next to them, they may be able to kind of rattle off a quick list of do this, do that, here’s how I want this to look.

 

And that’s an easier situation. The corn with that with a remote person is you need to put a bit more time into explaining, you need to be better at delegating. So you know, you need to describe things better outline, it better, be clear on what the goal is what you expect to happen at the end of this. So

 

that can take a little bit more time. But for me, that’s actually got a pro status as well, because it makes me better.

 

16:49

Yeah, I guess in a way, it forces you to be more efficient and effective in the way you communicate. But then again, this problem will probably apply to whether you’re outsourcing your work, or if you’re facing your employees on Delete day basis. Yeah.

 

17:01

100%. But again, I think what I would say that as well starts the case that can happen in a traditional business, when you work with someone for six months or three years, if you give them tasks that, you know, aren’t their main remit aren’t the thing that you know that they do day to day. So that can happen

 

both ways. And personally, I’ve experienced that both ways, you know. So I think, you know, that’s, you know, that would be a chord outsourcing. But there’s pros built into that as well in the similar things and the traditional business that that, you know, that work in the same way.

 

17:39

Will you agree? Now, Kevin, you know, as mergers and acquisitions, Laurie, myself, one of the key considerations that we think about when we’re talking about outsourcing arrangements with consultants is whether that individual that you’re working with is truly an outsource consultant, or are they supposed

 

to be classified as an employee. So depending on the jurisdictions that you’re working with, there could be that risk of a mis classification of an individual being a consultant, as opposed to an employee. So if an individual supposed to be classified as an employee, there’ll be additional tax risk, and employee immune rights that are supposed to be entitled to under the law. So I think, of course, this would be

 

highly dependent on the jurisdictions that are working with, as I said, but I think something that we really should highlight to the listeners is that if they do take outsourcing very seriously, and they’re considering building a business around it, or if they want to build a business towards it, is that they actually should speak to their own legal and tax advisers on this basis, to really get clarity on how you can structure this properly to make sure that they’re in compliance with the law in my right

 

18:38

100% said, and it’s a great point, you know, like anything you do in business, you need to ensure you’re doing it the right way, particularly, if there are legal ramifications, you know, these, these things are becoming a lot more clear now, as as countries and governments and, and so on, get more used to the

 

freelancer model in the gig economy. And, you know, and, and the whole outsourcing thing, because it’s, it’s come on leaps and bounds from from where it was even, you know, a couple of years ago, potentially, because of the COVID thing, you know, that it’s made people look operating a different way. So it’s important to look into that your own your own country, your own jurisdiction, and make sure that whatever you’re doing, you understand the ramifications of that.

 

19:25

So guys, wherever you are in the world, while outsourcing can be a very powerful way that you can improve the efficiency of your business. Please do take the time to think about whether you should be speaking to your own legal and tax advisor on the way that you’re going to structure this because you

 

want to make sure that whatever you do, you’re in compliance with your jurisdictions laws. Now back to you, Kevin, could you share verse, where do you actually go to find good consultants to help you with your own businesses?

 

19:48

Yes, so we look at we look through quite a lot of the marketplaces that are mentioned in the book. You know, one of the one of the top ones that we use is up work. Probably alongside that would be free up. And freelancer, probably, they will probably be the top three sites that we use for people at work being the main one are those and work as a as a huge organization. Now it’s listed, you know, it’s a listed

 

company in us the number of freelancers and the number of clients on there is as enormous and there’s even, you know, there’s enterprise clients on there like Microsoft and Airbnb and, and others who source talent around the world to find for their projects for ongoing work. So that is a particularly

 

good marketplaces, it’s very mature now. The ability to be able to search based on very specific criteria for freelancers is, is wonderful. So, you know, we use those marketplaces, we also get recommendations from existing team members, who mentioned, you know, whether it be a friend or an

 

acquaintance or someone else that you know, that they know, if there’s openings for them to join the team, and in some shape, or form, but certainly, for the last 10 years, 11 years, then that’s, that’s been the main route to us for talent.

 

21:25

great tips, Kevin. Now let’s talk about the process of onboarding new consultants into the business, a key part of ensuring that the relationship between the consultant is a good working one is to actually make sure that their expectations are set right at the start, could you share with us some tips on how you do this for your own business?

 

21:40

Yeah, so I think the even going a stage before that, before you do the onboarding, is working as hard as possible that this depends on what the rule is. So the, you know, the amount of time and the amount of an onboarding process that you do with a freelancer is quite specific to the role they have. And what I

 

mean by that is, you know, if you’re bringing in someone to design a logo for you, then you don’t really need to go through an onboarding process. You know, if it’s a one off job, you know, and it’s very specific, and here’s the project, and this is what we need, and this is deliverable, then you don’t need to go through onboarding them into the organization of the business. It’s good to give them information

 

about you know, culture, your business, and what the business is about, and the vision and all that after being creative and doing something creative. But you don’t need to onboard them into the business, where you have someone maybe a virtual assistant, or a web developer, or a financial person, or you

 

know, something where they’re going to be a core part of the business, maybe the good ebn, 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week, then you need to look at your onboarding process there. So I think the step back from that, as you know, you make sure as much as possible through the interview process, you’re really clear on what you need, you’re really clear on your expectations, that over and

 

above the fact that they fit the skill set, that you make sure that a really good fit for your culture, because of the not a good fit for your culture, and they’re going to be within the team and they’re going to be a core part of the team, then ultimately, there’ll be a break down somewhere, because people generally are what they are. And you know, people have their own their own mindset and their own

 

ways of working and you know, the type of people they like to be around. And again, one of those huge benefits of this enormous marketplace knows, it’s easier to find people who are actually going to be a better fit for you. So make sure you get the culture part, right. When you just shoot as possible, and you

 

can’t always be 100% certain, because I always look at I think for years and years, I’ve always looked at interviews more like an audition. You know, it’s someone who comes in and plays a part of who they think you want them to be. I think that’s also beginning to change a bit. No, because freelancers have a lot more power to select the clients they want, and not just take any particular job. Yeah. So

 

24:24

when you say that the bargaining power has shifted, you know,

 

24:27

it’s it’s, it’s much better aligns, because there’s more choice. So again, you know, that, for instance, the marketplaces and we’re touching up work again, an awful lot of the freelancers on there would actually be looking for jobs and applying to jobs, the jobs will become into them, because they’re so highly

 

rated. That as a client, when you do a search, you see the profile, you see the past jobs, you see the reviews, you see the total earnings, how long they’ve been in the platform. You think that’s a really good guy. That’s a really you know, that’s really Get out, I want to get them on the team. So you know

 

that that balance has changed a bit with the freelancer model, I think so you get them on board, you hope they’re a good fit for your culture. And then you make sure that the systems and processes are in place, you can you can give them, they can understand how you do things. Why importantly, as well,

 

why you do things, what results you’re expecting, you’re trained them on the systems you use, often, you’ll find that they’re already trained, and systems like maybe a project management system that you use, because they’re so you’re so widely used now given again, the outsourcing and freelance model.

 

So you make sure they’ve got access to your processes, your systems, why you do things, and you make sure that you’re you closely monitor them. And that initial period when the command to make sure you’re there to answer any questions to make sure they’re doing the right things, and to give them

 

importantly, the best chance of success as possible. Because when you do that, then you’ll get the best chance of success, and your clients and your business have the best chance of success.

 

26:07

So guys, as Kevin has just shared, it’s important to make sure that when you’re onboarding a reliance consultant into your business, that you set the expectations, right, you check if they meet their

 

qualifications that you need, if they fit in your culture, because you want to make sure that they are a good fit for you and your company. Now, Kevin, one of the key concerns that an entrepreneur may have is that their concern that the outsource consultant could actually post declines that they have, was this ever a concern for you? And if so, how have you managed this in the past?

 

26:36

Yeah, so I mentioned that in the book, Ted, and it’s a good question again. So, you know, as a reality, yes. 100% as a reality and our traditional business as well, yes, 100%. What I can tell you from

experience of doing both, is that, as far as I’m aware, and you know, 10 or 11 years, I’ve been doing outsourcing, I don’t have any recollection of any knowledge, it’s probably a better but I don’t have any

 

knowledge of anyone I’ve hired, try to go to Rei direct to one of my clients. I can tell you that, you know, the opposite of that is in the traditional business. I’ve had people who have left, who went on to start other businesses, and who have 100% tried to contact not tried, who have contacted clients and tried to poach them, you know, over the years, you know, if I look back at the IT business, you know, that’s

 

happened several times with technical staff of hard and sales, people will find ads. And, and all that time, I believe we’ve had one client who has went with those people. And looking at that in detail that was not a client that I or the senior management had any real connection with. And therefore, the bond was a lot was a lot less than it was with the rest of our clients. So you know why would see that as, as a

 

concern, but it can happen, and traditional and remote businesses, I would, I would suggest that the key there as much as possible is to make sure that you are your CRM senior management team, if you’re a bigger business, and you’re using outsourcing, that you have, you know, a super strong relationship with your clients, which you should do anyway. Yeah, you know that, that should just be a

 

basic business. So that if one of these freelancers or a member of the team tries to make contact and tries to poach them, that they’re likely to be rebuffed. You can use things like nondisclosure agreements, and non compete agreements and so on. And we’ve had them you know, I’ve had them in traditional business, I have them No, and the remote set up there. Do the work. You know, I think if the person is in the same country as your same jurisdiction as you then it’s easier. Yeah, it has a lot more teeth. Yeah, it’s easier to enforce that. If you’re in UK and you’re dealing with someone in the

 

Philippines or Argentina or even though probably, you know, Spain, since you know, your, you know, the UK is of European Union, then it would be more difficult and more costly. And so you need to take a pragmatic approaches to, you know, what follow through, you would have if something like that happens, but it also takes you I guess, back a step, where you need to think about how do you protect

 

your business? How do you protect your IP, how do you protect the rest of the information and your clients and all of that and again, I think that a watch Sade makes you think about those things a bit more, and therefore, it makes Should be a bit of business person. And it makes you set up better processes procedures, and it makes you strengthen your business, possibly better than then you would have done had you not used this as a route to market as talent.

 

30:13

So guys, if one of the constants that you have about outsourcing is the possibility of your consultants that reporting your existing clients, this one, because what happened with your own employees, as Kevin has shared, the best way to combat this is to make sure that you have a good strong relationship with your clients. And if your relationship is actually strong enough, your clients could actually be telling you that one of your employees or consultants is trying to push them away. And of course, another way

 

is to make sure that you have the right legal documents in place to protect your relationship with your clients. So depending on the jurisdiction that you’re doing business in, make sure you reach out to the right legal advisors so you can get help on this process as well. So Kevin, now let’s talk a little bit about

 

the two companies they are running right now. I know one of the companies is called liquid media, which is a media agency focused on online marketing and promotional videos for clients, and WordPress support specialists, which is an agency focused on providing it support for WordPress websites. Now, could you share with us how you’ve built these two companies around the idea of outsourcing? And how has the concept of outsourcing contributed to their growth?

 

31:12

Yes, so they are 100% focused on using outsourced talent. You know, as well as hopefully my own talent, yes, that worked for myself. So you know, so that’s, that’s exactly how those businesses have grown. Blink of media, we build marketing strategies, we create content, you know, whether that’s written content, often blog posts, or PR articles, we, we create social media, posts and content for clients. And by the natural extension of that, we create short videos that go along with those pieces of

 

content. And we do, and we offer graphic design services for the brochures and infographics and that type of thing. In times gone past, we offer more services, but we’ve scaled that down to be specific at the things that we really like to do we enjoy to do you a nice down completely. And so, and the flip of that, WP Support Specialist is effectively a one stop shop for all things WordPress, where we will rebuild WordPress websites, we provide support, maintenance, management, hosting, optimization, all

 

of those things that wrap around the WordPress ecosystem. And so we have some members of the team who can have span across both businesses. And we have some who are very specific to finances WP support spaces where we have WordPress, support technical staff. And, you know, that’s what they do they provide the support and maintenance and care for our clients who have support agreements with us, for instance. So yeah, you know, every one of those in the team are, are their own victims are

 

their own boss, the freelancers. And they’re, they’re based around the world. So we have people in Argentina, Portugal, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, we have even doing as far as the Philippines, probably a couple of other places. But that’s the you know, that’s the that’s the main kind of cohort of the people in the team. So Kevin

 

33:27

is ready to see from day one, when you start both companies, you wanted outsourcing to play a key part in the way that the business is run

 

33:33

100%. And you know that that’s helped us as well, because, you know, particularly in the support business, we provide support for clients across the globe

 

33:43

in a 24 hour service they were talking about, right? Completely Yes, so of

 

33:47

clients, Australia, clients in America, clients in Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Far East. And so, obviously, they operate at different times of the day that get different needs. And you know, sometimes you need something done at a time, that would be 1am, for me, traditionally, but we have people there

 

who can provide that service. So having created the business that way, it’s worked really well, because we build in clients from the marketplaces, as well as hiring from them. And it’s just been a wonderful thing.

 

34:19

Now, Kevin, before I let you go, I’d like to talk to you a little bit more about your passion behind mentoring others. So previously, you mentored in Project Scotland, and entrepreneurs spark weren’t mentoring projects. Are you up to these days?

 

34:32

Yes. So at the moment, I’ve scaled that back because we’re working very specifically, and the two businesses at the moment to remove me from a lot of the day to day things, so that I can work more on the strategy of the businesses and also look at what the next stage is, whether that be another book, which is would be focused on the flip of the first book, so it’d be more fun Capstone the freelancer

 

rather than the business meeting agenda? Yeah, yeah, hopefully saw. The the mentoring side has been scaled back at the moment. But from the start of 2022, we’ll be offering actually, is as part of making or giving back process where we’ll be offering free mentorship for up to four people for six months at a time. And it’s really designed for people who are new to business, you’re starting a

 

business, or getting into a business for the first time, or who are maybe a little bit stuck in their business, and they need some support there. So that’s going to, that’s actually going to be a free mentoring service that I’m going to offer, which really is just about giving back into the business community. Because, you know, if I think back to when I when I was a young guy at 19 years old, I

 

would absolutely have loved to have that type of that type of facility, you know, that type of person, something there that could help me answer the questions and progress much faster

 

36:08

than I did, and to help you avoid the mistakes that you may

 

36:11

completely Yes, you know, suffered a lot less pain and the process of building that first business. So that will kick in early January 2022, when there’s actually a bit more time there that I can that I can give to that properly.

 

36:27

And it’s there. Now Kevin, if the listeners on your mobile one thing from today’s conversation, where would you like it to be,

 

36:32

I think I would like it to be the outsourcing as a wonderful route to the market to either grow a business from scratch, you know, with with no other talent, or to complement a business that you already have. You don’t need to think of it as something that is only for certain types of businesses, it can work for

 

any type of business. So I would say open your eyes to look into it. Try it, try it small. outsource some small tasks, some little things that won’t have any negative impact in your business or really your time or your existing team. Give it a try. See how it works for you. Ideally, you have read the book, outsourcing for success in order to guide you through that process and make it work for you as good as it possibly can. Yeah, I think that would be that would be the main point I would want to leave with.

 

37:32

So how can our listeners get in contact with you if they need your help? Or if they want to work with you?

 

37:37

Yes, so you know FSR owns outsourcing, learning more about it, how to use it in your business, those types of things then they can contact me on kev ashcroft.com if they need to talk about their WordPress website or anything related to that, then they can contact us at WP Support Specialist COMM And if

 

they’re interested or want to talk about any marketing, then they can contact us via LinkedIn media.com

 

38:08

now Thank you, Kevin, all your website links will definitely be shared on the episode page yourself. So listeners if you guys want to get in touch with Kevin, make sure you jump on to the episode page and you can get all the resources you need. Now Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today sharing

 

your stories and your expertise, making outsourcing so much more accessible for everybody. Thank you for joining us today.

 

38:29

It’s been a pleasure Ted. Thank you

 

38:31

guys. Thank you so much for joining Kevin I on today’s conversation. I hope you’ve learned something if you’re keen to learn more about outsourcing there make sure you check out Kevin’s book outsourcing for success. Now all links tools and resources are available on my website to.com that’s t EDT COMM

 

And if you subscribe to our email list, then you receive all the latest resources right in your email inbox. If you’ve ever received any value from the show, I would love if you could show your support. Share the show with somebody who find it useful as well subscribe or follow to the show and leave a review on Apple podcasts. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you on the internet. This is Ted Teo, signing off.