886: OUTSOURCE ANYTHING and grow a global team w/ Adam Pisk

0:00 Hey, what is up? Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast. As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and we have got an entrepreneur on today's episode that I have been so excited to talk about, because this is someone who not only has grown a worldwide, rapidly growing successful business, but someone who helps you and I do the exact same in our own businesses. He's so passionate about helping other businesses grow, reduce costs, increase productivity Gosh, I'm excited for today's conversation. Our guest today. His name is Adam Pisk. Adam is the co-founder of Bruntwork, which is a fast-growing remote-only outsourcing company.

0:41 With over 25 years in sales and operations leadership, adam has dedicated his career to delivering exceptional value to his clients. Now Bruntwork. I love their company's mission. Their slogan is Outsource Anything. They specialize in reducing operational costs by transitioning operations to cost-effective regions like the Philippines, colombia and Kenya, just as three examples. In just over three years, this is a crazy growth story. They've scaled to over 3,000 staff members serving clients in 14 countries, including the US, canada, australia, the UK, new Zealand, singapore and more. Adam excels in driving global market expansions and using consultative selling techniques to boost revenue and build lasting client relationships.

1:27 His goal is to ensure that clients are set up for scalable success and can make a meaningful impact in their markets. I'm personally excited about this one. We're going to learn a lot, so I'm not going to say anything else. Let's dive straight into my interview with Adam Pisk. All right, adam, I'm so excited that you're here with us today. First things first, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, brian, I appreciate it. Heck, yeah, I'm going to publicly praise you, because you and I were joking about it off air. You're coming to us all the way from Australia at six o'clock in the morning. Our listeners, just like myself, we thank you for that, adam, so I'm going to give you the stage first To speak to you.

2:07 I'd get up at three if I had to right. I so appreciate that, and you know what. It's funny we're talking about time zones, because I'm sure it's going to factor into today's conversation in this global economy. But before we get to the good stuff, take us beyond the bio, adam, because you not only have an incredible growth story with Bruntwork, but you've been at this and really refining your skills and experiences along the way. So take us beyond the bio. Who's Adam? How'd you start doing all this stuff? Look, the short long story is I left school and got into accounting and started working for KPMG as an undergraduate, doing university at night. Working during the day realized in the corporate environment wasn't really my calling, and actually someone in KPMG who's also there it wasn't their calling came up with an idea in business and it was setting up cafes in the foyer of buildings.

3:02 Back in 1998, when that wasn't really done, anyway, got the sense of being in business, scaled a number of cafes back, then left the accounting profession, found myself in business at really the age of 19, 20, and continued from there with a lot of ups and downs in between. So that's sort of my short story with a lot of little long stories in between that that get to where we are today. Yeah, I love that overview, especially because you hit the nail on the head. I've never heard anyone articulate it that way that life is a series of short stories that hopefully make one cohesive story when we look backwards, but obviously so much of it in the rearview mirror.

3:46 It makes sense that you got your business chops through those short stories, but obviously what you've done with Bruntwork has been an incredible success. I know that this was born out of the pandemic, so take us to the early beginning blocks of Bruntwork. Yeah, look a lot of people when they talk about fast business growth and, as you said, you know in Brumwick we've been around a little bit over three and a bit years, had a lot of experience in outsourcing prior to that, but this company only started three and a bit years ago and, to get you know, well, over now, 3,000 staff in a short period of time is has been an incredible journey. Has been an incredible journey. But a lot of people say, oh, this is because of my skill in this, or I was great at this, or I identified this opportunity.

4:30 A lot of people that get into this position, I think, downplay the role of luck in where they are and we were very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, with some opportunities that presented themselves early on in the pandemic that we then took advantage of. But obviously all the negativity of COVID and the challenges of that did present some opportunities and we were lucky enough to be in a very good position to take advantage of that at the time and then have sort of the ability to continue the growth story. So, yeah, it born out of COVID. I can delve deeper into that if you'd like me to.

5:11 Yeah, please do, because obviously we're going to talk a lot about outsourcing here today, which is a scary topic for a lot of people who haven't experienced it. But I'd love to hear those building blocks because it seems to me from the outside and, adam, I'd love for you to correct this story or shed some light on the real stuff. Is that you and your team behind Bruntwork, you were very willing and excited to say hey, if we're serious about growth, we need more hands involved, and you've obviously always embraced outsourcing. So how did that, in and of itself, play into the founding of Bruntwork? Obviously, growing that team, it takes so much resources and manpower to get there. Yeah, so the backstory is that we have another business, which is a technology business, that we've been running since 2008.

5:58 We've been outsourcing that business since 2014. And actually the story of that's pretty interesting in that it's an Australian company, tech business and we couldn't get the metrics to work, in the sense that our client base was very fixed on a price point and our cost base was fairly high and we couldn't get the cost of marketing, payroll those costs to generate profit, given what we could sell the product at. And so I joined that company in 2014. And the first thing that I looked at was how can I reduce the cost base to actually make some money out of this Venture-backed business?

6:43 Couldn't make money because just the market was very price sensitive, and so the first thing we did is we moved every single role from Australia to the Philippines. That's every single role. That was the only way that company was going to survive, and when people think about outsourcing, they think back office roles or VAs or very simple roles. In that business it was every role, from software engineers to hr, to finance, to accounting, to customer support, to our sales team. So a lot of people go on. Surely offshore sales teams can't outperform, uh, local sales teams. And we proved that wrong and have done that time and time again.

7:26 So it's not just the thinking of, oh well, I can just outsource the easy tasks, and sure you can, but that's quite myopic in its thinking. You can really outsource any role that you can't find people locally or it doesn't make sense to find people locally. So we proved the model really back in 2014, and that business then became profitable, continues today and is still profitable because of that model. But when COVID hit, that business, which relied on basically contractors, was pretty much shut down because contractors couldn't operate. Particularly in Australia. We had some of the toughest lockdowns in the world.

8:07 So we were like, oh, we've got all this stuff in the Philippines with very strong skill sets. What can we get them to do? We need to save their jobs. What can we get them to do? This other business can't operate because of the environment. And so we approached a large supermarket chain in Australia that was very much based on bricks and mortar, so it wasn't into the online delivery. It was very much about the experience If you walk into the store, you feel an orange and you buy it, and they weren't set up for online. So when COVID hit, they were in a difficult position because they didn't have that online delivery in place. So we pitched them. We said we've got an entire team in the Philippines with every role that you really need, we've got the developers, we've got customer support.

8:52 We can build you an online presence very quickly for your supermarket chain, help with online delivery, logistics, customer support and we got that up and running in a matter of weeks. It was like two or three weeks. We got them up and running and online and they were then selling almost the majority of their business through the large supermarket chain, then through an online mechanism through COVID, and that was the first thing that we said okay, we've got something here. And then that news got around and then other major companies heard of us, including a major fashion company that had 1100 stores in shopping centers, also didn't have an online presence, and then within really three months, we ended up having over 350 staff in this new business and solving some pretty big problems through COVID.

9:45 And then we said, okay, we've got something here, let's see how we can scale it. So that's a little bit of the backstory into how Promwork started, and then it really just snowballed from there. Yeah, adam, I can't help but notice in the way that you talk about outsourcing is that I feel like Fiverr and Upwork. They've limited our perception of outsourcing and the way that we view outsourcing as project-based. But you keep saying the word team. To me it sounds like you view it as outsourcing an entire team, genuinely building a team of worldwide talent. Talk to us about that, because obviously we can outsource in all of those ways, including project-based ways, but talk to me about your perspective of that source in all of those ways including project-based ways, but talk to me about your perspective of that.

10:26 Yeah, so look, there's certainly a big market opportunity for the Upworks and Fiverr and that is, we would say, freelance, project-based. So if you need something, a certain thing done within a set time period and that's it, I need someone for two weeks to upload data into my CRM and that's all I need done. Upwork and Fiverr are excellent for that. When you need someone who actually and I suppose the best way to define what we do more is like global employment as a concept. So if you're actually looking to scale your team and if you're looking to say, hey, I need more people in my business as part of my actual infrastructure, whether it be part-time, whether it be full-time, but more as an ongoing role, whatever that role is, that's where we can help.

11:14 So it's not so much limited project base. It's like I need to hire someone. Their job is behind a computer, rather than looking just in my small town in Arkansas or wherever it is, and I'm very limited to the people that can come actually to an office within a small area. I can actually go to the world and in going to the world, I can get the most qualified people out there at the best possible price, and that's the way to look at it. It's not so much project-based, it's I want to go to the world and get the best people in the world to help me scale my business and in the same way, you get cost efficiencies as well. Yeah, I love that you directly called that out. It's so limiting if we focus on our only geographic area.

11:57 I started my first business back in 2008 in the Boston area, which Boston is world-renowned for Harvard and MIT and so many colleges per capita, a lot of really talented grads, so there's talent there. However, you're bringing in not only the talent side of the equation but the cost side of the equation, which I think is really important, especially because we're talking about the aftermath of a global pandemic where inflation's been wild. Here in the US you can go get $20 an hour at Target, for example, and so we've seen that side of it. But, adam, still for a lot of people who haven't dipped their toes into the world of outsourcing, they probably don't realize the global talent pool is at their fingertips. Talk to me about geography behind outsourcing.

12:38 It sounds like you and I are very aligned. I've loved having team members from the Philippines and from Colombia. Listeners know that behind the scenes at the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast, those are two countries where our team members are from. But, adam, why these countries? Are there certain country considerations when we talk about geography or what makes a talent pool really successful from a certain region? Yeah. So it's sort of two parts of that question. One is like the geography and then how can a small business be comfortable in going through this process? But start at the geography first. For us, the three markets that we focus on at the moment Philippines is the largest market. For us. That's been like the world BPO business process outsourcing headquarters for the last 25 years, and the reason for that is it's an English speaking country, so English is one of the national languages.

13:31 There's a local language and English, so everyone speaks English. The other thing is a US influenced university system that's accredited and has graduates that come out at a high level, high levels of critical thinking, et cetera. So you've got English-speaking, high level of university-educated people, 110 million population, and you've now got the government's now invested a lot more in infrastructure around that, so you've got decent. You've got good internet. Now you've got good power supply, so you've got reliability in that sense as well.

14:11 So you've got a deep talent pool that's been supporting the us market for a very long time and the global market. Colombia is a our sort of second region where we have the second largest number of staff, and that's a growing region for us, growing in the sense same time zone as the US, which is an advantage. With the Philippines, 70% of our staff work through the night, which, again, it's been ingrained in their culture. It's not an issue for them, they like to do it. Their whole life is set up that way. Whole life is set up that way. The economy is set up that way. But in Colombia same time zone also a great university system. English now is compulsory at school, so getting a larger English-speaking population, good education system and now an emerging outsourcing market.

15:02 The other big advantage of Colombia is often bilingual, so you have a lot of US companies that have a lot of Spanish speaking clients, let's say, or interactions and clients or staff. Colombia is the obvious choice, or South America at least, where you've got English and Spanish as languages. Kenya is our latest market and that's on more the European time zone. Kenya has had a large British influence in terms of its education system. Their education system is good, also English-speaking, a lot of French speakers there too, but a lot of English speakers. A lot of creative talent is coming now from Africa, so a lot of digital graphic designers, social media specialists, creatives.

15:49 So that's also an emerging market for us as well that we're investing more time and effort into. Yeah, adam, it's funny Anytime people listen to business podcasts. Everything always sounds so easy. Here, you and I are singing the praises of the power of outsourcing, but of course, there are logistical challenges that present themselves along the way. The first of which I think it's very important for us to touch on here today is vetting candidates and understanding okay, this person from the Philippines, from Colombia, from Kenya, is it the right person for me? Are they good, are they reliable? So many questions that go behind vetting. Talk to us about that, because I know it's such an important and intentional part of what you all deliver at brunt work.

16:29 Let's talk vetting and the considerations for entrepreneurs yeah, look, that's really this. Three and a half thousand outsourcing companies out there, and that's that actually was a year and a half ago, so there's probably even more now. So what's the difference really between most of them? And a lot can come down to are we a better customer service? We look after you. We understand your challenge more, your issue? Pretty much everyone says that, but at the end of the day, it comes down to who can find the best candidates for the best value for money for the type of business that's looking for them. That's really the differentiator. And for us, now where we are, just to give you a sense of scale, we get about 15,000 to 18,000 resumes a month of people applying to our roles we hire at the moment.

17:17 This month we'll hire between 400 and 500 new staff. So just to give you a sense of what we're hiring and the growth. But that's still a small fraction of the people that are applying and we have a bench, let's say, of over 200,000 applicants that have applied. Now you can't effectively screen that and match and get good results without the utilization of the most advanced technology out there, and we made a decision really a year ago but have continued doing that constantly in terms of AI technology. So the idea is you've got to match, like a small business in Arkansas versus a big business in New York versus another business in Singapore is going to have different needs, different culture.

18:05 Even the same job will need a different type of person, and just to get the screening and be able to do this at scale, you need very good people managing a process and you need the right technology to make sure we're doing it efficiently and effectively and that it's constantly learning about mixing and matching people to company and opportunities. Otherwise, you get turnover, which isn't good for people Entering into outsourcing, isn't good for the agents and isn't good for us because we recruit for free. So we're all in in terms of technology. I think we're probably leading the space in terms of AI matching technology that we've developed. Holy cow, Adam. I always argue with people that hiring is probably the hardest part in all of business, and now I'm talking to someone who is literally hiring hundreds of people per month at that scale.

18:55 That's incredible and so obviously it shows your emphasis on technology and really refining this, which comes from, of course, behind the technology is your human experience, having done this so many times before. But I think it does lead to that big question for the consumers, which are the business owners, the entrepreneurs who are turning to Bruntwork for that sort of outsourcing what's that onboarding look like? Because hiring someone is one thing, but setting them up for success is incredibly important. What's that look like on your client's level? Yeah. So the point is, a lot of clients that come to us some are very experienced with outsourcing, like you are. You've had a lot of experience before. It's a different process for someone like you that has gone through it.

19:37 But a lot of our clients have never done it before and it's intimidating for them on through it. But a lot of our clients have never done it before and it's intimidating for them. And they they've. They're from small businesses. They haven't really managed people themselves locally, let alone someone from the other side of the world. So the idea is really that the secret is in those initial calls, that we have to discover what really are the key things that this business needs to move the needle from this type of candidate. Because a lot of people go oh, I've read Tim Ferriss' book A Four-Hour Workweek, I need some form of outsourcing, but without really defining what that job and that role is. So the idea is to get our client's mind into. This is no different to hiring locally in terms of the process.

20:20 We need you to define the job description. We need to be really clear on what the objectives are. What does success look like for this person that you're hiring? We need to be really clear on that. And once we've got that, then it's a question of applying the other metrics, like cultural fit, et cetera. Is it a not-for-profit? Do we need to get someone who's passionate about the cause, for example? So it's skills, and then it's culture, and then attitude, and we have a whole lot of screening in place for that. And then in terms of the customers, it's going through that process and then we sit with them through interviews as well.

21:00 So we will bring in candidates. Our team of experts will actually sit through the interviews with the clients, because often, again, a lot of clients they're good at running their business, they're not good at interviewing staff, and for us we recruit for free. So if our clients make the wrong decision, that also then is a cost to us. We have to replace the agents. Again, we do that for free, but we don't want to do that, we want to get it right. So we sit in that as well, and it's not until a client feels comfortable with a staff member. That's when our agreement starts. We do everything on the front end for free. There's no contractual obligation. Then it's only month by month. So again, there's still no long-term contracts until they actually find someone that they wanna work with.

21:45 And then the onboarding process as well is very involved, particularly for the first 30 days. So we provide all the tools that they would need to utilize if they wanna use it, or our staff member can use their existing tools either way, and we go through and through the first 30 days, have a whole lot of touch points to make sure that they understand best practice and how to manage an outsource staff member or an outsource team, and they have an account manager, a dedicated account manager that really holds their hand, particularly through the first 90 days and then beyond. Yeah, adam, it's so. I love the fact that you called out the four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss, because for a lot of us, myself included, it feels like that book came out decades ago, which it probably did at this point.

22:30 But I think that was our first real view into the fact that this is an opportunity and hopefully this episode is doing the exact same thing for our listeners, getting them excited about this. But anytime, we all get excited about some sort of growth strategy for our businesses. The next question, ultimately, is, of course, costs and, adam, I'm going to publicly praise Bruntwork because you all have a cost calculator right there on your website publicly. So obviously we can't go into all the logistics of if someone's looking for a designer versus finance but gives people some ballparks for people who have never outsourced. How affordable is this? You talk about recruiting for free, which I know is going to be eye-opening for a lot of listeners, but what do the actual costs look like?

23:12 So the way we do it is we present candidates and their rate range. Their rate includes everything. So if you're given a candidate and it's given us and they have a rate that includes computer, internet, payroll, hr, it support, account management, all the data security products that you need, any of the project management tools, it's all included and we recruit for free. So if you're given an hourly rate at the end of the month, we invoice monthly. That's all. You pay Hours, worked times, hourly rate. It's really, really simple in that sense that covers all fees. So the question of what is a cost? So the average price for our candidates and that's from literally CFOs down and senior accountants and programmers and software developers down to basic admin the medium level of price for us is about $6.50 an hour.

24:05 Us right. That's the average. The rate range that we typically operate in is between $4 and $8 an hour. Obviously, at the $4 to $5 end you've got more simpler back office tasks. At the $8 end it could be things like more social media specialists or more technical roles, google ads, et cetera, and we do have roles with them, more technical, more specialized. They can go beyond that, they can go higher than that, but the majority are within that rate range makes it really affordable for someone to just go. I'm going to try this. I'm going to try one role I recruit for free anyway. I don't need to hire someone until I find someone that I want to work with and if you look at the costs on a monthly basis, it's really low and we hold your hand through the whole process.

24:51 So you're really set up for success for this and we do part-time and full-time. So both options. I think that's really powerful. And it leads me to the next question, very simply, which is when, adam, you've grown your own businesses as well, in addition to, obviously, we're talking about your subject matter expertise with Bruntwork, which is outsourcing, but on a business owner to business owner level. What's your advice for listeners who maybe they've never hired anyone before and they're wondering. They hear so many guests, adam, I'll share this with you. Every guest comes on and the consistent feedback we hear is I wish I hired sooner. So, from your perspective, having been in the game, what's the right point at which an entrepreneur should be looking at or actually pulling the trigger on, hiring or outsourcing?

25:35 So I think the way to look at it is you've got to look at a day that you're like, look at your calendar, look at your calendar, look at your day, look at your schedule and if someone tells me, shows me their schedule, shows me their calendar, I know a lot about them. I can tell a lot about your calendar, about the person and really, if you're talking about outsourcing within $4 to $8 an hour and you look at all the tasks that you're doing during the day, look at all the tasks that you're doing during the day, look at all the things that you're doing during the day and then put a value to it and can you teach someone those tasks? And if you can teach someone those tasks that you're doing, you're valuing your own time between $4 to $8 an hour and, as you said before, you can get a job at Target at $20.

26:20 So you're valuing yourself below that checkout person at Target when you're probably a sophisticated business owner. And so what I say to people is look at your time, look at what you're doing, look at the cost of doing these tasks. That's on you, that $4 to $8 an hour, and what else could you be doing with that time if someone else someone else was, uh, was doing those those jobs, could you be out selling more? Could you be doing the more high-end tasks? Could you be networking and expanding your business? Could you be focusing more on revenue if you weren't spending half the day reconciling your accounts or sending invoices, or scheduling or checking emails or doing social media posts?

27:04 So those type of things. That's what I sort of tell people to look at, and if they can look at that and then really break down the cost to themselves for spending for working on these things, and then it looks at a different. They look at it in a different ROI. It's not that I'm spending $550 a month on a part-time VA. Oh, wow, that's a big cost. It's well. I can spend $550 a month on a part-time VA and therefore I can put time in. That's going to make me $20,000 a month because I can do X, y and Z, and that's sort of the approach that someone needs to be in to determine that that outsourcing is a good fit, particularly if they haven't done it before and they're just dipping their toes in the water yeah, I love that overview, especially because it just seems to me, adam, from the outside looking in at brunt work, is that you've seemed to have thought of all of it, and of course, it's easier to do that when you've actually lived it and you've experienced it yourself.

28:00 But I'm going to call out even something like cultural awareness training that is embedded into your processes. These are things that you've already thought of to set people up for success. Talk to us about some of those other considerations, because I'm trying to wear the hat of someone who maybe hasn't embraced outsourcing the way that you and I have, and especially the way that you have Adam. So what are some of those considerations? Whether it's kind of the cultural stuff, the time zone stuff, but I'm also going to add one more thing into the mix, which is creating that team environment. When we have someone onboarded, how can we ensure that they actually stay with us? Because I find that that's an entirely different challenge in and of itself. Okay. So all of those things are related and what we found is if staff members have a good cultural awareness of the countries and people that they're working with, then it's going to be a better fit from the beginning.

28:51 Or we're going to know if there's issues from the beginning and then we can replace them before everyone spends too much time in training etc. But what we look to do is there's two sort of approaches that outsourcing companies have. One is where you get people at a lower price point that are smart but haven't had experience and you then train them in a role. You then train them in the skills as they start the role. We do something. We try and go a different path generally where, rather than try and find someone who's more a generalist and then the client trains them up more at the beginning, we really try and find someone who's got as many of the skill sets at the level the client wants from the beginning.

29:37 And then obviously the way a client does things might be different to the way their other previous employment did things, but at least they're going to have a lot of the strong skill set. So we try and, rather than bring candidates in from the ground up, and train them in-house on skills. We try and find people that already have those skills and that's why Bruntwick's a hard place to work to get in as an agent, because we take the cream of the crop. We take the top 1% of the people that apply. Because we want people that have had a good track record of employment, that haven't been job hopping, that are at the top of their game, that have got the highest level of skill and in order to retain them we pay them more.

30:18 It's as simple as that really in the developing world. I mean. There's other parts of it too, but at a minimum we're looking to pay stuff about 20% above market, which is still very cheap, and you saw the price ranges that we charge our clients. It's still within a very low rate range. But in the developing world the main reason why people leave and work and go to another job is not because they're looking for career advancement or anything like that. It's because there's just more money. So if we pay people more money from the beginning, we sort of eliminate that and it doesn't make any real difference to our clients. In fact it's cheaper for them because staff turnover costs a lot more than 20 percent more on a fairly low base.

31:01 So pay people well so they can eat. They don't need to worry about financial stress. Pay people more. And then the other parts to set them up for success. And we do do that cultural training when new staff start up and make sure that they understand that in the US a deadline is a deadline. In the Philippines a deadline is generally a nice date that would be great to finish things by, but no particular consequences. So we make sure people are very aware of things like that. And then it's about teaching the client that this staff person is. Whilst they might be on the other side of the world, they're no different to anyone else working for you and you have to treat them that way.

31:46 So we have a test that we ask our staff at the end of each month. We say who do you work for? And if they say Bruntwork, we failed. Because we want them to say the client that they're working for, because that means that they've been really integrated culturally and part of that team. So there's some strategies, a lot of strategies that you can utilize to do that remotely, and I can go down that rabbit hole too, but really it's in terms of managing a remote team it's. You look at it and go, okay, they're on the other side of the world, but they're just sitting behind a computer and I'm including them in the same way that I would any other staff member that's locally, in daily meetings, weekly stand-ups, the same technology, email addresses and, to some extent, incorporating benefits, etc.

32:32 We want to do it as the like-for-like. Yeah, I love that perspective, Adam, especially because in doing my research ahead of today's conversation with you, I know that for you this isn't just about outsourcing. I love the fact listeners know we always ask our guests what's your zone of genius, and you said it right there. I'm very good at getting both staff and clients bought into a mission and vision. Ours is to improve the economic opportunity of our staff and clients. And, adam, when people kind of here in the U S, we and I'm sure it's the same in Australia we have these movements of made in America and hiring American made, but the reality is is that everybody wins in these situations. As someone who leads a global team, I'm so appreciative of our team members all over the world and it is.

33:15 I hope we've achieved what you just alluded to, which is I hope that they feel like they're part of our team, not just. You know they're an extension on the other side of the world of the operations that we're doing. So what is your? I guess I want to give you the stage here to talk about that, because outsourcing has been in that position in the marketplace where people talk about obviously the uglier side, that some prey on it, but what you're doing at Bruntwork is literally making the world a better place, making business work better for I'm going to extrapolate not just your staff, not just your clients, but the end consumers of your clients. It makes better business. Talk to us about your perspective on that, because I think it's important for us to add into the conversation.

33:55 Yeah, so there's a lot of layers to that question, but ultimately our vision is to improve the economic opportunity for our staff and our clients, and we take that very seriously in the sense that we want to be a place where staff are paid well and paid on time and have opportunity above any of our competitors. And we also believe that that then helps our clients that are. You know, so you have the Made in America movement and things like that, but if you're utilizing cost-effective support globally, it helps those brands grow. So in our experience, companies that have used outsourcing to scale have then grown themselves and made a lot more money and grown their brand and their business within their local economy far more than they could have done it utilizing local staff with the roles they're outsourcing.

34:53 So it is a real win-win and it's the argument of it. Taking local employment away has really, particularly in the last few years, gone away, and the reason for that is try and find someone in the US in some of these roles. Just try and find them. That's the most of our clients are coming to us now. It's not a cost-saving exercise for them. Sure, that's a bonus, but it's you. Try and find an accountant that can work for your accounting firm in the US at the moment. Try and find it. I had a call a couple of months ago from an Australian accounting firm and he started. He said Look, this is the worst call I've ever had. And I was like what do you mean? We just started and he said yeah, I know I've been one of those people that's been so anti outsourcing and yet here I am, and I'm here because I've been trying for six months to hire someone locally and I can't find anyone.

35:46 So I've had no choice. So a lot of this has been in terms of full-time employment trying to get someone in the US or Australia to be customer support. We have one of Australia's most premier furniture companies as an example. That's our client. They just their whole made in Australia. Their whole image was they were very scared to outsource because their brand is all about Australian made, australian owned, and they're a premier company. So they didn't want to offshore and reduce that standard. But at the same time they were hiring Australians who were working in a call centre and again, unfortunately, in Australia, in the US, you're working in a call center. You're at a certain stage of capability when there's a market of full-time employment and they weren't getting the support that was justifying or that was in line with their brand, and so they said we'll test it.

36:37 And they've never looked back and now they've got a team of 40, 50 people with us and the standard that people pick up the phone now, which before with their Australian team they were having issues with wait times et cetera Now people are picking up the phone, professional sounding, voice, solving problems, giving their clients answers and their star reviews. Their ratings have gone up because they've now got the customer service in place and it's made them a stronger brand locally. And they then hire more people locally and design roles and more high-end roles, et cetera, and open more stores. So there is a win-win if you do this right. It's not just, oh, one's taking money from the other. The other part is when you pay someone well in the developing world, you are really supporting a village, and I mean that literally.

37:23 Often the person that you're supporting is supporting a whole team of people around them in terms of relatives and families. So you are making a difference. If you're paying someone really well, a lot of people are being affected by that. There's a strong multiplier effect when you're doing that in the developing world. That does make a difference. It really people then really value their job, and when you value your job, you're much more likely to put in the effort to make sure that you keep it, and that's what we generally get with these roles uh, as well. So I've been answered that question adam, not only does it answer it, but you knocked that question out of the ballpark. I so love and appreciate that, and especially because you hit on something that I wanted to also add, but you spelled it out so succinctly is that when businesses grow in the right manner, it only creates more opportunities, and for us behind the scenes at the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast, having an international team has allowed us to gain more resources, to reach more listeners, to have incredible guests on, to even create more localized opportunities.

38:28 So, adam, to your point, we are a living testament to that, and I love the work that you're doing, because I think what you've added to the outsourcing conversation today is really a deep rooted belief that you have to take care of everybody in this ecosystem, and the way that you all are doing that at Bruntwork, I think it's so powerful, and I think that the trickling effects of that just sends positive ripples throughout the entire businesses that you work with, but also the entire global economy. So I think it's really powerful. The advice that you've shared with us. I have no idea how you're gonna answer my last question, because you've shared with us. I have no idea how you're going to answer my last question because you've already shared such a wealth of knowledge with us. But that is your one takeaway for listeners who are surely excited to dive into the world of outsourcing, or whether they're chasing business growth from learning from someone like you who's actually achieved that and continues to grow really rapidly.

39:15 What's that one takeaway that you hope every listener walks away from today's session with? I mean, this is something that a lot of people do talk about, but I think in our example we've really, really lived it and that's been the reason why we've scaled, and I mentioned that before. And that's the core value of being really clear on our mission is to improve the economic value of our clients and our staff. If anyone checks out our Glassdoor reviews or Google reviews or Trustpilot reviews, particularly the Google and Glassdoor we have hundreds of reviews, the most in our space, by a lot from staff who we've changed their life. And I'll just add one aspect to that as well, which really like, which we didn't touch on but I think is an important answer to this question.

39:57 In the developing world, most staff spend four to five hours two to five hours each way traveling to work, and we're a work from home business model. And last time I was in Manila, which was about two weeks ago, and I met up with a staff member and they were like crying and they said you changed my life so much. Not only am I paid, well, I'm now not traveling eight to 10 hours a day to work, and I've been doing that as a single mother for six years. So that's a real thing in the developing world. So if you have the mission, for us, it's very core to our heart. We want our clients to have a better life, we want to improve their economic opportunity and their quality of life, and you see the results and that then inspires you to do it more.

40:39 And with our clients, when they go from one part-time person, 20 hours a week, to a team of 30, as they then have scaled their business, that's also very rewarding. They can do more good in the world. That's the way that we're going. That mission drives our entire team. It's the reason why our team, our internal team, which is several hundred people, get up in the morning every day and do this job, and that then helps you scale. And every month we're breaking records at the moment. So that's my advice is a lot of people say, get clear on your mission and core values, but they sort of leave it at that and it's a bit esoteric with us. It's something we very much live and breathe and it's been really one of the key driver to our success in continuing to scale, because we want to give people more people, more clients, more opportunity, and this is such a game changer I really wish more people knew about it, which is why I'm on your podcast.

41:32 Yes, and boy do we appreciate that. Adam. Seriously, the work that you're doing is so meaningful and so impactful and it's enabling growth in all the ways. I feel like we throw that term around so generally and broadly and we forgot what growth means, but this growth sparks growth for countries, not just businesses, people, populations. It's really deeply meaningful and impactful, the work that you're doing, and I'm so grateful and appreciative that it's minds like you, Adam, that are leading the way. I think what you guys are doing with Bruntwork is incredible. It's a resource that I'm excited personally to tap into and I know our listeners are, so drop those links on us. Where should listeners go from here? Sure, our website is bruntworkco. That's bruntworkco and there's a lot of information on that website and a contact form if you want to book in a meeting.

42:19 That website and a contact form. If you want to book in a meeting, you can obviously hit me up on linkedin directly, just under adam pisk that's p-i-s-k. Is my last name. You've got all my detail. You can see all my details there. You can even email me directly at adam at brumworkco. So those three channels, uh yeah, and and get into it, feel free to get in touch and we'll take you and we'll hold your hand. So it's not a scary thing to test it. Try, it doesn't cost you anything to at least see some candidates, and I think a lot of people should go down that path yeah, dare I say. Listeners, that's my challenge to you here at the end of today's incredible session with adam is take him up on that. It really is a win-win-win. I'm gonna throw that third win on because your eventual clients and customers they also win through you growing and you doing business the right way.

43:02 So, adam, you've been a wealth of knowledge. Listeners, you already know the drill. We're dropping all those links down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode. You'll find Bruntwork's website at bruntworkco. That's bruntworkco. You'll find that link down below, as well as a link to adam's personal linkedin. Otherwise, adam, on behalf of myself and all of our listeners in over 150 countries, thanks so much for joining us on the show today thanks very much for having me, brian. It was worth the 6 am start. Let me tell you that, thank you hey, it's brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast. If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

43:44 Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom. And I just wanna give a shout out to our amazing guests. There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you and and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate. These are not sponsored episodes. These are not infomercials. Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions. They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible. So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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