2267 - How Remote Teams Transform Lives and Drive Global Impact with ZimWorX's JW Oliver JR

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

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1:05With us right now, J.W. Oliver Jr. J.W., you are the visionary. You are the co-founder and CEO of ZimWorks. You're found on the web at zimworkswithanx.com. Also, your personal page can be found at jwoliver.com. And, of course, those links are in the show notes for our friends that are watching right now. J.W., thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. And I'm already excited just hearing your excitement in your voice. It just makes me more glad to be here, too, John. Well, good. good. That's, that's, that's where we're all, we all come together here. Hey, before we get into kind of your work that you do professionally and some of the impact that you have in the world, from a personal perspective, what have you been interested in lately?

1:52What have you been geeking out on? I don't know if there's any TV shows, movies, watch games, hobbies, vacations, or something like that, that you've been enjoying lately? Well, you know, I recently, I just did something with my son. We got our large boat captain's license. And so I've always been interested. I've had my pilot's license for years. I've always been kind of out there, adventurous, like doing new things. And so we were actually rented one years ago, and it's not really big, like a 50-foot catamaran. And I thought, well, I don't want to have somebody on board with me. So my son and I actually went down to the BVI's, got our captain's license, and look, it was just a great time so that's kind of my last little bit and now i need to go find more time to utilize that as well okay so what is a big boat like like what foot length do they say okay now you got to have a captain's license for that well most of the most of the places like through the moorings that rent places in these exotic places the bvi the you know the cayman islands uh uh over the Greek islands, places like that, they actually want you to have a captain's license, an intercoastal waterway captain's license, so you can charter the boat, obviously for insurance purposes and whatnot.

3:06So if you did go rent a boat, like even if it was only, say, a 25 or 30 foot boat, they would probably say, well, you're going to have to take somebody with you. This gives me the ability to charter up to, I believe it's 89 feet is what actually you can. So it was fun you know we had to learn how to dock it into a little bit of windy weather and bring it into the dock and put it into a slip and add a moor how to use an anchor how to use the mooring ball so it was a lot of fun and uh i've only had the one trip out where we trained and now we're my son and i are planning and if i can get my wife along i think she's a little scared to have me as the captain of the boat yet without a little more experience wow well very very i mean that's got to be cool like moving something that big has got to be a different experience than, you know, just the boats that we typically, you know, rent or buy or whatever, kind of tour around water skiing and stuff.

3:57And what is one thing that someone who doesn't know how to pilot a big boat, like what's one thing that you learned that it was either surprising or like, oh yeah, no, no, no, this is legit. Like if you're moving a boat this big, interesting fact, anything come to mind? Yeah, I would, I would think how close the distance is closed like when you're coming up to a dock or when you're coming up to a mooring ball and and you think you're only moving at one or two miles per hour knots and then you realize man we're on it and and how quickly you have to use and of course these are dual engines so you're having to use both the left and the right engine to advance or retard to turn the front of the boat so it's i would say just how quickly things happen uh even more so than you expect you know when you're out there in the open water it's no big deal you can see for miles right but as you come into these docs, you're realizing it moves fast.

4:50So you just learn to move really slow. Yeah. And you've got like so much mass that's moving too, that just takes a lot of weight, so much more force to kind of push back and stuff. Fascinating stuff. Well, JWU, let's talk about the work that you do because, you know, and I, and I love your mission here because, you know, you've done one of those things that I think is just, it's got to feel good, right? It's, I think a lot of us, you know, we start companies because we want to, obviously, you know, we want to, we have a skill, there's something we're good at, there's a problem we can fix. And so we go out and do it.

5:24And obviously, we want to get paid well for that. You know, but then there's this third component. It's like, you know, hey, we want to make a really positive impact in the world. And again, you can order these in any order you want. But, you know, those three things are important. But Zimworks, man, you have really executed on that third one of like being able to make a huge positive impact in the world while you are providing valuable services. Yeah, our mission statement is transforming lives will make a global impact. And when we say transforming lives, it is about putting people to work. because you're right, Josh, when you go back to it, I think all of us, when we, as a serial entrepreneur for 30 plus years started dozens of businesses, it is about, hey, I wanna make money.

6:10I need to provide for my family. I need to save up for retirement. I need to have a nice house. I need to have a nice car. I think all of us in the back of our heads start thinking things like, and what am I doing? Am I making a difference or am I just making a dollar? And I don't believe there's very many people that just say, you know what? I just wanna make a dollar. I don't care about the people. I'm just here to make money. I don't believe there's anybody like that. The problem is, is we become a little bit benign to the fact that how do we make that difference? So when we started this, we agreed to give 51 % of our profits back to various ministries.

6:44Now, I always laugh because I always tell people in the first five years of this business that it was easy because 51 % of zero was zero, right? We weren't making any money. We were losing money and We were trying to build the business, and so that check was easy to write. But now we really are making an impact where we're doing that with ministries. Literally all over the world, we're able to help support them in those efforts. But yeah, you're right. It is this win-win-win. We say it's a win for our team members. We operate in countries where the unemployment rate, the unofficial unemployment rate can be as high as 70%, places like Zimbabwe and Zambia.

7:19And so by giving people a job, it's impacting their family. We are impacting the clients, typically in the healthcare industry, media industry, where we're providing them with amazing team members. And then it's the win where we're able to give back that 51%. And we're seeing the impact. And so it's really been a lot of fun. When you work in environments like Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Costa Rica, you know, what I'm really curious about is there are some inherent advantages to working with folks in those communities. Do you mind maybe talking about what is great about working with a team, virtual remote teams in those three countries?

8:01Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, it's difficult, right? When you're establishing a footprint, when you're establishing businesses in places like Zimbabwe or Zambia, it can be difficult just from an operations standpoint, really trying to get yourself a foothold, how to deal with all the regulations. But once you get past that, what's really great about it, there's a problem with outsourcing. We have this misconception, we like to say myth, that they're going to be hard to understand. There's going to be not the time zones are going to be a problem. And we found that in Zimbabwe, Zambia, what's really nice is, number one, time zone is only about six hours difference.

8:40So it's not as inherently difficult. It's not like it's 12 hours difference. the fact that they truly speak the queen's english they sound like they're from london so you have a nice little accent but maybe josh the number one thing is americans most americans love i know i do oh i know too no that little that little accent i can't even duplicate it you know it's like a little english accent is so nice but what's really been interesting and we deal with this every day we we've got 350 or so clients we employ about 1500 people now and it's continuing to grow each mine. But what's amazing is we talk to people in the U.S.

9:16I can't find anybody to work. I can't find anybody that wants to apply. I had an interview set up for 10 people and one person showed up. The really big differentiator is, man, they want to come to work and they want to keep their job and they want to do a good job. So that's probably the most inspiring thing is seeing people who are really taking a capitalist approach, right? I'm going to work. I'm going to make some money and I'm going to change my life that want to come into work every day. That's really been the most impactful for me. Yeah. Yeah. And so do you mind maybe sharing like who you work with, like in, and you know, who would really benefit from a remote team, particularly you know, a remote team from an area like Zimbabwe, Zambia, or Costa Rica?

10:05Yeah. First of all, I'll back up a little bit. The country was really a hard push for education. So to go to a university there is available. It's expensive still, but parents will spend their life savings to make sure their kids get some education. So, for instance, when I talk about our 1 ,500 team members, I believe it's 94 % actually have a university degree. So they're quite bright, number one, when it comes into that. But in terms of what roles they can do, they'll have accounting degrees. They'll have degrees in IT, you know, information technology. They'll have degrees in just general business.

10:46And what we do, we're really strong in the healthcare industry, especially in the dental specific. So our team members are doing everything from answering the phone, what we call a director of first impressions, where they're able to actually book. So if you call the dental office, you might be speaking to somebody in Zimbabwe that says, yeah, Mr. How can we help you? You want to get your cleaning done? Great. Of course, we're speaking in a little bit of a British accent. And so it works really well. So they can do that. They can do handle accounting. They can handle any kind of insurance work, even calling and verifying that you have an appointment or it's time for your regular checkup.

11:21your medical checkup or your dental cleaning. So any of those roles that can be used. Now, the thing that's growing has been accounting because of the high cost of accounting roles in the U.S. and the U.K. We have our customers in the U.K. as well. And also in executive assistants. It's really high-performing individuals who realize I really need an executive assistant. So that's become a big piece. So the medical healthcare industry, front office, back office work, as well as executive assistants. Yeah. What are the, I guess you may come across objections or concerns. Like what are some common concerns that a potential client might have that maybe it's, I mean, it's just something they, a preconceived idea or like, you know, it's like, well, no, I have to have someone local for this reason, this reason, and this reason.

12:17Yeah. I think when you deal with, with healthcare, Their data security always comes in like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to get hacked and they're going to get my information and they're going to go off with it. I would say we are more secure than most medical dental practices. We leverage a company called Black Talent, who literally actively manages our cybersecurity. So I would say cybersecurity always comes up. They're always concerned about the time zone. I guess they think that they're going to work their eight to five and not ours, but we actually match up. So if Josh in Florida says he wants to be eight to five Eastern time, that's great.

12:50But if you say I'm in California and I want to be eight to five Pacific time, we do that as well. Those are the big objections is time zone and then security. And then another one can be contracts. We started the business saying, look, we don't want to do any long term contracts. We've got a 30 day agreement. So it renews automatically every 30 days, basically, so that you don't get locked into some contracts where you feel like you can't get out of it as well. So those would be the big objections. Yeah. And so when someone is considering working with you, what is that? What's that discovery process?

13:26Or what's that? I mean, I guess someone who's considering might be listening to this podcast right now very specifically because they want to learn a bit more about you and Zimworks. But what do you typically do? Like at the very beginning of that? Yeah, we call them the discovery call. They can go to our website, which is the Zimworks, Z-I-M-W-O-R-X.com. They can schedule a discovery call. That usually takes about 20, 30 minutes. We do kind of what we're doing here, Josh. What do you guys do and how does this work? And we take them through a little slide deck, PowerPoint presentation, explain it.

13:59from that point, if I was finishing up with you, I'd say, hey, Josh, why don't you just meet some of our team members and you can interview them? So we would line up two or three team members who would come on. You would actually do a Zoom call just like we're doing here and you would interview them and you would say, you know what? I think I want to hire Samantha. And we would have Samantha now working directly for you. The difference is we're not running a pool of team members, you hire somebody and that person works directly for you, full-time, dedicated to your company as well. So that's where we've really differentiated quite a bit.

14:35All right. I see also on your personal site, JW, that you do a lot of speaking. We've got a room of CEOs and founders, a lot of SMB founders in the room right now. What's a common message that you typically share with them? And we only have a couple minutes left, I'm so sorry. Just the condensed version of like, ah, yes. Leaders, listen up. Yeah, I would I would say the number one thing is turning into workplace wellness, which we have a workplace wellness team. We actually have a VP of workplace wellness. And that just simply means how are we focusing on our team members so that they feel valued and appreciated and that we're also addressing those various needs that they have?

15:17We have a big team of about 14. Some of those are pastors. Some of those are counselors, but they're all just individuals who can help when one of our team members, we call them team members. We've learned not to call them employees. We call them team members. When one of our team members is struggling with emotional, financial, relational, marriage issues, children's issues, whatever that might be that we can help invest into them. So I speak a lot about improving the workplace wellness of other organizations because it's been really essential in not only having a really low attrition rate, but for us to be able to scale.

15:52And I think that people forget that, right? They just think, oh, I'll get somebody else to do that job. But really focusing in on the workplace wellness has been a key aspect. All right. So to our friend that's listening right now, so do people hire you to speak? right? Yes, correct. Yeah. And that's, you can learn more about that at your website, jwoliver.com. Who would be a great organization for you to speak with? Anything that has to do with leadership. I think when you talk about leaders, when you're bringing CEOs together, we've spoken at a lot of healthcare conferences where C-suite people are coming in for collaboration, different events, and to be able to address them for 30 minutes about improvement in their workplace wellness or leadership.

16:43I go to Africa about four times a year. So I tie in a lot of the things I've learned from, for instance, the cheetah and how important the cheetah is in his environment and how you can take some of those same skills in leadership. So love to talk about leading, love to talk about also my faith, as well as how that can tie into your workplace wellness. Yeah. Well, I bet in the locations that you've been able to spend so much time. I bet you have some great photos to share on the screen as well. So. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm getting hiking from hiking with the gorillas to walking with the cheetahs. It's been amazing.

17:18Love it. Love it. All right. So the websites, zimworks.com and jwoliver.com, particularly for our business owner clients. There's a button right here. It says book a call, call now, schedule discovery call. And then you have something called a savings calculator as well, which you can kind of take a peek at. Did I miss anything? No, you covered it well. This is great, man. I'll tell you what, I wish I could pack it all in like you do in 15 minutes. You did a great job. I appreciate it. JW Oliver, co-founder of Zimworks, found on the web at zimworks.com and jwoliver.com. JW, thank you so much for joining us.

17:57Thanks for having me, Josh. Appreciate it.

18:28one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies.

19:09Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.