Inside Outsourcing and the Future of Work with Derek Gallimore: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level Level, the all in one sales and marketing marketing. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down inside outsourcing and the future of work. To drop these via bombs, I brought Derek Gallimore into EO Fire Studios. Derek has built multiple eight-figure businesses based on a global workforce. Outsource Accelerator is the world's leading offshore and outsourcing marketplace. And today we talk about how hard work and grit will lead you to success, how the world is moving towards a single global economy and workforce, and oh, so much more.

0:34And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Derek and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook. Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic, all in just 90 days.

1:15Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. Derek, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, John. How are you? Look, it's kind of crazy, but I think it's just hard work and grit. And I think a lot of people like to think that there's a lot more shortcuts in life, especially in business. But I think now as we start to see the recession kicking in and everything going a little bit crazy, there's no shortcuts. You've got to put in the hard work and do the reps. Do the reps, put in the hard work, Fire Nation.

1:56and we're going to be talking about how you can maybe leverage some outside work as well as we talk about inside outsourcing and the future of work today. So Derek, you believe that the future of work is digital, that it's remote, that it's global. Can you expand upon this? Yeah, we're seeing this huge trend now, aren't we? I mean, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, we were talking about the paperless office and people thought that was freaky. And now more and more, we're seeing that everything is being done online. We've gone from an industrial revolution to the fourth revolution. And as you can see, it's more intellectual property.

2:33It's more about thoughts instead of manufacturing. It's more about services instead of products. And, you know, we're seeing this trajectory. And if you just extend that along, then the world, the future of work is digital. And as you've seen recently, you know, everything is moving to remote. And an extension of that is also global. And my big thing is that we are moving towards a single global economy. And that has happened for products for many decades now. And that is happening more and more with services, professional services and employment. And that wasn't possible until the world was digital.

3:17And now that everything is vastly digital, we are moving towards one single global workforce. Fire Nation, it's the world that we live in, and we're going to be talking really about what this involves for you as listeners right here today, because it's just the overall concept, Derek, of work that's dramatically changing. I mean, especially since COVID, I mean, things have just really been put into overdrive. That fast forward button has been hit. There's probably not a person in the world who hasn't at least heard of Zoom at this point. So can you share some specifics and examples around this change?

3:53Look, it's been dramatic. Like two years ago, people were suddenly forced to go remote. And there's a lot of businesses that were unhappy about that. And there's people that preferred the in-person reality. But two years ago, everyone was forced to go remote. And from that point, the concept of work dramatically changed. And obviously, some people are very happy to go back to normal now, but the reality is that things have changed for good. And what it has taught us, you know, these things have taught us that the technology is available for remote and digital work interfaces. Now, people's habits haven't been so quick to change.

4:41And sure, some people and some businesses prefer to work face-to-face still, or in a more of a traditional sense. But the opportunity to work now digitally and remote and globally is there. And so it is now a very real option. And, you know, what we're being faced with is sort of labor shortages and soaring salaries, high inflation. And there are abundant, competent high qualified capable people around the globe that can work for you and your business and this until now is not really acknowledged and not really taken advantage of fire nation i think that's the biggest key is at the end there that is not being taken advantage of because this is an opportunity if you're looking at it through the correct lens and that's where i want to move to next which is the great resignation is the labor shortages and the soaring employment costs I mean, talk about these things, Derek.

5:43I mean, what is the impact that these things are having on this world? And how can we, the listeners, Fire Nation, entrepreneurs, small business owners, how can we take advantage or at least maneuver through these situations? Look, we've had a really tough two years with COVID. And it seems as soon as we come out of the situation with COVID, we're faced with the great resignation. We've got intense labor shortages, skill shortages. There's soaring employment costs. You know, developers now are trying to charge$300 ,000 per year. Graduate salaries are going higher than ever. And yet the businessman, the business person is left carrying the check and they've got to make everything work.

6:27But actually, you know, when you are stuck within a boiler room or a bubble, then there is no release valve. Yet there is a huge release valve. There are 8 billion people on the planet and they are now all increasingly connected digitally. And there are about 4 billion people that are highly qualified, highly capable sitting around the world. And this is not just virtual assistants. This is not just basic roles, but you can find PhDs, you can find architects, you can find accountants, you can find rocket scientists, whatever you need for your business. They are available globally. And if you tap into the global workforce, then you have an opportunity to not just access abundant talent, but you can access it at a 70 % discount to the West, which is just phenomenal.

7:24Wow. Can you give us an example of what you're seeing in this world of maybe a person or a company doing this correctly? You're like, wow, that company's got it figured out. Maybe it's you or maybe it's somebody that you know. but what is an example so Fire Nation can really understand what this would look like? Sure. I mean, people are familiar with the Tim Ferriss kind of model of virtual assistants. The reality is that the outsourcing industry is a sleeping giant. It has been going for about 30, 35 years. It is a$250 billion industry globally. It employs about 10 million people globally. And at one end of the market, offshore staffing powers the likes of Coca-Cola and American Express and Facebook and Google and Uber.

8:12Down the other end of the market, you actually have the small and medium-sized businesses. And there is a huge burgeoning market of outsourcing firms that cater specifically to the needs of the small and medium-sized industry. and what you tap into is not just a staffing solution but as a small and medium-sized business you can find a staffing partner that can help you build processes into your business help you build sophistication into your business and help you access the global talent pool we actually had a client in the US who had a huge business in a very small town. It was a tourist town and he always lamented that he was hiring from a talent puddle, not a talent pool.

9:05And he could not find the staff that he needed for his business and it was constricting the opportunities of his business. And he had to find any people he could and train them into the roles. Okay, that's probably familiar with a lot of listeners. And this really held back his opportunities and his business. And we instead introduced him to the huge talent pool of Manila in the Philippines. There are 20 million professionals living in Manila. And he is now able to, he very quickly expanded, he hired three people. He understood it. And then he expanded that team to 18 people. And his business now is absolutely flourishing because he could get the skills he needed at a great price and he was able then to build on his business.

10:00Fire Nation, if you're finding yourself looking at a talent puddle instead of a talent pool, this is something that you need to be thinking about seriously because the opportunities are there. We're going to be talking a lot more about this specifically when we get back from thinking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack.

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11:10On top of it all, their support team is second to none and has your back every step of the way. Seriously, every question that pops up, they will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial. So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com, where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. So Derek, we're back and outsourcing and offshore staffing. I mean, this has been happening for 30 plus years now. What does the future hold?

11:46There's a lot of buzzwords around outsourcing. You know, there's virtual assistants and outsourcing and offshoring and all these kind of things. And all of those can seem a little bit kind of scary and impenetrable. What you need to understand about outsourcing is that it's a fancy word for traditional employment. It is just think about it like standard employment, except someone is sitting in a different location to you. That's all you need to think about outsourcing. And if you have that concept in mind, then you are 99 % of the way there for what outsourcing is. And fundamentally, if you just treat your offshore staff like a normal employee, you would onboard them, you would train them, you would manage their day-to-day activities and the operations just like any standard employee, then you have got the concept of outsourcing.

12:40And also then you've got the management concept of how to build out an operations team. It works exactly the same. Now, what is really changing? You know, as I've mentioned before, outsourcing has been happening in earnest for about 30 years. And it's only the big companies that previously could access this industry. And that's because, you know, 20, 30 years ago, technology was very expensive. You had to set up servers. You had to set up all of the infrastructure. But now, like everything, technology is in the cloud. It's cheap and accessible. And that has had a huge impact on the offshore industry.

13:23And what it means is now this most powerful business tool is accessible to small and medium-sized businesses across the globe. So the big businesses have had access to outsourcing for the last 30 years and small businesses have been locked out. Now that small businesses have access, they can save up to 70 % on their staffing costs and they can access abundant pools of highly capable, highly talented staff. It is an absolute game changer. At the moment, it is a little bit sort of fringe, but soon it will become ubiquitous and default that people look to hire the best, most capable staff wherever they are sitting instead of finding the only people that are available in their local market.

14:22So it's really going to change over the next sort of 10 years. We are going to have a complete inversion of the norms of employment and sourcing your staff. When you said the word 70%, I think a lot of people's eyebrows raised because they're like, wow, that is a massive discount. So let's get specific. How can businesses and entrepreneurs and maybe even our listeners here today, how specifically can they find highly skilled professionals at that big of a discount? What would they do? Yeah, John, I want to raise this. A lot of people have concerns about the ethicalities of outsourcing. They say it's not fair.

14:54You know, how can you pay people that? The reality is, you know, like talking to a U.S. audience, the reality is the vast majority of the world has lower salaries than the U.S. And you're aware of this in Puerto Rico. Also, the cost of living is significantly lower than in the U.S. So in, you know, I'm based in the Philippines. I've been living in the Philippines for the last nine years, which is the mecca of the global outsourcing industry. And a salary of 500 US to 1000 US dollars per month, that's their base salary, is a very good salary for most administrative, for most digital, for most marketing jobs, for entry level accounting jobs.

15:43So you have a huge swathe of professional talent that is available for a salary of$500 per month to$1 ,000 per month. And that, you know, anyone can tell is a fantastic opportunity for both sides. Significantly, the skilled professionals that are working for that money, that is a great opportunity for them. They are amongst other professionals. They are eager to build their career. They are working in nice environments that are conducive to work and building their profession. And for the employer sitting in the West or the US, obviously, that is an incredible discount to their local market. So it's really a win-win.

16:33And, you know, there are, it's not just VAs. It's not just basic roles. You can hire MBAs, you can hire PhDs, and you can hire top level executives, you can hire CTOs. And the majority of those roles will be discounted by about 50 % to 70 % discount to what you would be paying locally. And that is just an incredible opportunity for both you as a business owner, entrepreneur, or hiring manager, and also the staff located globally, such as the Philippines. And believe me, Derek, I've been beating this drum with my audience for over 10 years now. I mean, back in 2012, I hired a Filipino and I was talking with her and she was saying, yes, I'm a nurse, but I need to get out of it because I'm getting paid$400 per month and I'm working, you know, like four 12-hour shifts a day.

17:31I'm going to take a two and a half hour one-way bus trip to get to the hospital to work. And then there's like every few months, like her bus was getting robbed and like she was having to like give up like her iPhone and some money. And then it's just like a bad scenario. She's like, I just want a safe and secure, like living in existence. And so I said, well, what if I match what you're making as a nurse now and say, Hey, you can just work nine to five from home. And she like basically started crying because she was like, that would be such a dream come true. And since then she's only for 10 years, I've been giving her a very solid raise every single year and she deserves it.

18:08So now she's making way, way, way, way above that as she's been with me for so long. And now I have two Filipinos working for me full time, one guy from Pakistan. And it's just like you said, I mean, it's the cost of living there, paying them$500,$1 ,000,$1 ,500 per month is absolutely game-changing money for a lot of people with that kind of environment and opportunity. So that's something that's really important to be looking at from that perspective when you're going into this. And Derek, to kind of close this down now, you believe that outsourcing is the single most powerful tool in business.

18:43Can you share why? Yeah, absolutely. Look, it's a truism that businesses are nothing without their people. And especially as we move into the fourth industrial revolution or the fourth revolution of business, where it is more about professional services, It's more about intellectual property. It's more about IT, software, things like that. The people count. We are not making products so much anymore. We're not reliant on machines anymore. We are reliant on our professional staff, on our staff to drive our company forward and to build our company. And what people have historically done, you know, is limit their search for capable candidates to their local geographic region.

19:35Okay. And so if you're in a small town in the US, maybe you have a catchment of 100 ,000 people. Maybe it's a million people. You know, that's fantastic. But on your doorstep now is 8 billion people. Okay. The whole world should potentially be your candidate. Now, of course, when you refine that down, not everyone is suitable for that specific role. But there is no reason in today's world why you should be limiting your candidate search for those people that are physically on your doorstep. This is especially the case if you're going to be communicating with them through email, through a laptop, through Skype, whatever.

20:19There is a huge employee pool out there of 8 billion people. There are highly capable people, some of the best engineers in the world, some of the best developers in the world, marketers, content writers. Everything is out there and they are on the internet and they are globally connected. Now, people are the most critical aspect of any business. And now if you can access an abundant pool of talent, and you can do that at a significant discount to your competitors, then it is the single most powerful tool in business. And just imagine, John, if you can, look, it's not just about saving money. It's about accessing capable, highly qualified staff.

21:16But imagine, instead of looking at it from a saving money perspective, you can triple your workforce of highly capable staff, highly qualified staff, you can triple that workforce compared to your competitors, and it will not cost you any more. Okay. And what can you do as a businessman, as a business person, sorry, as an entrepreneur, if you have 3x the workforce compared to your competitor, that means that you can outsell. That means that you can out innovate. That means that you can out service your existing customers. That means that you can double down on research and development. You can double down on marketing.

21:57You can double down on growth and expansion. And that is when offshore staffing becomes extremely powerful and extremely exciting. If you just focus on, look, cost savings, then there is a very limited upside to that. But if you see the world as a huge opportunity and you have an opportunity to triple your workforce at no extra expense, then there is a vast sort of opportunity awaiting you and your business for growth and expansion and innovation. And that is how you can out-compete and out-strategize your market and your competition. And all of that comes from the offshore staffing or global employment paradigm.

22:47Derek, well said. And thank you for breaking this down and sharing so many value bombs on this topic. What is your final call to action here? How can Fire Nation connect more with you? How can we follow you? How can we learn more about what you have going on? And then we'll say goodbye. I encourage anyone and everyone to, maybe it's not right for you, but just explore this option for your business. It is not acceptable now for you just to say, look, this isn't right for me because the world and how employment happens is quickly changing. And there is a risk that you can get left behind. So we have a website, Outsource Accelerator.

23:27It's the trip advisor of the outsourcing industry. We have about 15 ,000 articles on there, a lot of education about what outsourcing is and how you can harness it. We also list about three and a half thousand professional outsourcing firms globally in the BPO or outsourcing directory. And you can also submit, you can get a consultation call, you can submit three free quotes, just get in there and have a look around and see if offshore staffing is right for you and can be integrated into your business. And we can certainly help with that. That is completely free. And also, I have just published, it's a combination of about 10 years work, I've just published Inside Outsourcing, which is a book explaining and exploring exactly what offshore staffing is and globalized employment and the future of work.

24:25So you can also check that out as well. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with DG and JLD today. So keep up that heat and head over to eofire.com. Type Derek in the search bar. His show notes page will pop up with everything that we've talked about today. Best show notes in the biz. And I just want to say, Derek, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Derek and Fire Nation.

24:58Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today, and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies?

25:37Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook. Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic all in just 90 days. Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more.

26:17Thank you.