05. Building a Remote Team – Dealing with Employees in Business

Burhaan Pattel  0:01  
Welcome to the marketing stack. My name is Burhaan. And in today's episode, I'm going to be talking a little bit about hiring staff and just running a remote team. And this applies to whether, you know, this applies to people that you have working in your team, both in your office and also remotely. And so, one of the experiences that I've had recently is where you know, the typical scenario, you're building your business and you start hiring people. Because you know, that either you can save yourself some time, or because you've got too much work. And you know, that you can get other people to help you to fulfill on those services, or those duties or just to help you save some time. And what I found recently is that, in a lot of cases, when you ask somebody do some work, they don't always follow through with 100% of completing that work, or completing that task, to the way that you would, and as a business owner, we tend to be or, in my case, we tend to be a little bit more pedantic, we, you know, we were very much hands on.

Burhaan Pattel  1:17  
In my case, I generally take the initiative and and we've been complimented on the initiative that I've taken throughout the years in building my reputation online and, and just in delivering on the services that I've promised to my clients. And so, now trying to get people in the team to also work at the same level or similar level, even if it's at 80, or 90%, of your own capability. There comes a time when they will let you down. And that's just a case of, you know, life happening. You know, life gets in the way, people get busy, they forget things and mistakes happen. I mean, as a business owner, you we understand that we made mistakes, getting to where we go, we are now. And now. And this is just part and parcel of life, but how you respond and how you react, if you are going to react to the situation, to the event to the mistake to the problem that you're having is what determines the, you know, the next course of action. And so if you're going to react in a very negative way, where you're upset and you're angry, and you're telling people off, that's not creating a business with a culture that that is geared up for learning and geared up for development.

Burhaan Pattel  2:43  
And in my case, this has taken many, many years to master or to even get to this point where, you know, you can have a conversation with somebody and say, Hey, like I understand, you know, the things happen, you made a mistake, that's fine, let's figure out how we can fix it. Or at least admitting in my case. One of the examples was I did not give enough instructions, I didn't give clear instructions to the person to articulate exactly what was expected. And I think in most cases, especially when working with somebody for the first time, we tend to forget that we tend to take for granted that Oh, our instructions are clear. We have all the mini steps or the micro steps in our mind, but we don't read write those things down for people to follow. Because maybe the task is now second nature to us. Maybe we've been driving a car for so long, that it's kind of automatic, it just happens. And now teaching somebody to drive a car, you've got to explain and you've got to instruct on all those little nuances that happens when you're driving a car. Right? just silly example, but very practical example. Because teaching somebody and knowing how to teach them. And then recognizing your own faults your own mistakes your own for you know, your own shortcomings when it comes to giving instructions and letting people know what you're expecting and letting them know how to fulfill on your expectations is one of the most important pieces.

Burhaan Pattel  4:22  
And so based on your reaction and based on your response to how they're, you know, to what was delivered to you, that's going to determine how the person feels, number one. Number two, it's going to impact how they continue working with you. And also it's going to impact the relationship because even though somebody is new in your team, and you've given them a little bit of trust, you know, you've given them access to certain things you've articulated to you to the best of your ability or what you may have at the time, what you're expecting. But going foward that sort of relationship and that, that the person then comes to work with this fear in their mind, or the person comes to work with this sort of anxiety and not knowing what their future is, especially when we're working with remote people, and remote people and on contract. Contractors are generally very fearful of their jobs, when things go wrong, or when they make mistakes. It's common practice that their bosses, their employees, their hire they hire, you know, because they're hired by somebody cancels the contract or, you know, says to them that, hey, you're not doing the job, you're not fast enough, whatever the case may be, and it just go on and find somebody else.

Burhaan Pattel  5:43  
And that's sort of the quickest way to solve your problem. But if you're looking to build a long term business, then if you see some talent, or if you see some, somebody who has, you have somebody in your team who has the ability to fulfill on some of those promises that you've made, or they have the ability to deliver on what you're asking, but you know, that they could be doing a little better, then your gut feeling you're in just in terms of working with them, you'll recognize some of those mistakes that you made, when you were growing your business, or when you just got started as a freelancer, or when you first started your first job. And so it's the patience that you need to be able to develop the person and to get them over time to where you are, or maybe better, maybe they you create an environment that's so geared up to their development that they thrive, and that they start taking the baton forward. And that's like the ideal situation. Now that's not that's like kind of the silver lining, that's where that's sort of the dream state of where we all want to get to. But it's going to take patience, and it's going to take a little bit of effort to get there.

Burhaan Pattel  6:59  
And so this is my nugget for today in building your business online, offline, remotely, in office, however, you're building your business. It's just that level of understanding and that empathy towards the people that you're working with. And knowing that they are part of the team, and they're not in this hierarchical hierarchical structure, where you're the boss, and whatever you say goes, the world has changed, the people dynamic has changed to a point where it's more collaborative, and more sort of a joint venture, more of a joint partnership, where people working with you people working in your business, are allowing you to, you know, you have a mutual dependency, where you're asking somebody to do the work, they are depending on the salary. And you depending on them to deliver on that work because you have other things to or other priorities in terms of working on your business.

Burhaan Pattel  8:05  
So that's my nugget for today. And in these episodes, you'll you're going to hear more about sort of marketing, more about building a business just based on my own experience, and based on things that I've seen in the market and what's going on out there when it comes to marketing strategy, building your business putting teams together. So thanks so much for listening. And if you liked the episode, please do subscribe. Leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this. And yeah, check out the website if you're curious. Bridgeight.com/blog. Bridgeight B R I D G E I G H T .com / blog. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you on the next one. Bye bye.