Johannah Barton and Outsourcing for Web Design & Developers

And she's going, well, I want them to be able to do this and this and this. There's no point otherwise I'm going. There's no human that would know how to do that. Like, really get real.

Hey, guys. My name is John Jonas and I am super excited today to have Johanna Barton with us. Johanna, welcome.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

So Johanna has a really great recruiting story to talk about that I think people will really find interesting. So, first of all, I want to hear a little bit about your business, just so people know, like, what you've recruited for and why. What is your business?

So we have a digital agency in Melbourne, Australia. We predominantly do web design and development using WordPress and Shopify, either online stores or small businesses that use our services. And we've been running for six years. I was in corporate for about 18 years and then needed some flexibility. And it was my husband's idea to start the agency. He had come from a tech background, and within a week, because we'd niched ourselves really well, I needed to hire staff, and coming from a business background, I wanted to have. I tried local developers and they would go kind of awol. And my margins, I wanted to offer a really good price point. And we had used. My husband had used offshore staff from India. And we found the time difference really hard. And then we discovered through a friend of his that had an outsourcing agency, we found a Filipino girl, and we were paying quite a lot of fees to them and realized it was cutting into our margin and we wanted to have our own staff direct. And because also she was getting. The agency, was getting half the money, so she wasn't getting a lot of the money herself. And it kind of didn't make sense to us. So we found you guys. Basically, I got introduced to you by another agency who've been using you for about 10 years. And then, you know, now we've got seven stars through you, so we're pretty happy.

That's awesome. I love it.

Yeah, it's a really great way to scale your business. So I talk about it a lot with Australian businesses of all sorts to use the outsource model.

Awesome. So, first of all, what is your agency name?

Confetti Design.

Okay, great. So I just wanted to get that out there in case people. People often want to know, like, maybe they'll. There's probably some clients watching this.

Yeah, no, definitely.

Here's the big. The question I get asked most often is, how do I find someone good? And you have developed a good recruiting process and So I want to hear it. I want you to talk through your recruiting process so people know, how do I find someone good?

Yeah, well, that's perfect because I love talking and being the center of attention. So this is a great opportunity and plus I'll like being helpful. But look, we. So one of the things that we found is that you. And it's just like anywhere, you can't possibly expect everything from an employee. So you can upskill, right? So the idea is to find, you know, the core skill that you're wanting and then develop them in other areas. Now with web design and development, it is a little bit easier because we want them to know how to use WordPress. But we actually found that we're getting a lot more e commerce clients, so we needed Shopify as well. So what we did do was we actually developed our own interview application form on Google Docs. So when we go to do an application, I kind of leave the description. It's kind of a broad description in the title of the job ad and then I have a link and I'm very clear in bold letters. So do not email me. So if people email me, I actually reply back to them and say, I will be deleting this because you've not read the instructions. So one of the things that's really important for me is attention to detail. So if you can't read an instruction, you're not going to be any use to me whatsoever. So that's number one thing is to make sure that they actually are reading it and following the instruction. We then take them off to a form that has a much more detail about who they are and, and also really clear about what they get. I have this perception sometimes that people think that outsourced staff are kind of like your minions and that they are like, it's like not a nice mentality. And you should be respectful of the fact that they want to know what they're getting, they want to know what the timeframes are. So you've got to manage people's expectations just like you would like it if you were going for a job interview. So we're really clear on the application about what benefits they get, why we love using them, how many staff we have in the Philippines. So they also know that they're going to be part of a team. They're not just one person isolated. And all of my team actually communicate with each other and they, you know, they've become friends. And I think that's fantastic. Particularly in this environment where they're often Working from home and they might feel a bit isolated. My team are so bonded that they sent me birthday flowers this year. Like they got together and used one of our clients to have flowers delivered to me. So I think that goes to show that the process we've created means it's meaningful and we've got a really nice team that we're building. So they go off to the application, they fill it out. There's bits where I want real specifics about work and examples of work that they've done and also how they rate their skills and different things. We recently found that someone, you know the job description ad. So we sometimes test the job description ad because we've got. I was doing something for WordPress, I was looking for a VA to help with QA and the title just wasn't getting the right type of person that had the right skills. So we tested it out a couple of times and I don't give them two weeks to put an application. So I go for three, four days. If people want a job, they want to get a response quickly. So I found that that was also a really good tip is to only give them three or four days. Test it out. If you're not getting the right type of person, change the title and change kind of what you're looking for because it means that it's not resonating with the audience. Get the applications, test out the type of job description, make sure you're giving back as well as just taking from, you know, in your application form.

What do you mean make sure you're giving back? How do you give back in an application?

So I'm telling them what they get from joining us. I want them to really want to work for us and stay with us. So I know that the salaries aren't very high in the Philippines. So often people moonlight and they do two jobs and they can because they may be working the first half of the day in one time zone and the second half in another time zone. I don't mind if they do a bit of that, but I like to be up front. So I kind of say, look, you get two weeks holiday, you get unpaid leave throughout the year. Sometimes there's 24 public holidays in the Philippines. Like if we had them not working 24 days when they coincide with Australia, it's okay. So I kind of say you can have 10 of those unpaid and we've got to book it in. So we kind of say, you know, we'll give you a bonus. But we don't. A lot of people do the 13th month. And I prefer to give them a higher salary all the way through the year. So give them an extra couple of dollars per hour than not have that 13th month because I'd prefer to just give them two weeks paid holiday. So giving back meaning what are the conditions? So they kind of feel excited about wanting to work for us so that they may give up that second job and they may give up the second job because they go, johanna is going to look after us as a word.

Because this is interesting. I've never heard someone say I don't give the 13th month. And that's interesting. And I'd be curious to hear how your people handle it because from what I have seen in the Philippines, most of them are not really great at budgeting across the year. And that 13th month is like critical to them. Like come December, they don't know what to do if they don't get it. And so just people watching this, be really, really careful with not if you're not going to do the 13th month, be really, really careful with it.

Right. So I do have a friend who has another agency and he's constantly talking about his team, just that thing about the 13th month. So we. So I'm really clear about that. So that when they know that they come to me that that's not how we work. But we do give them a bonus at Christmas, but It's not the 13th month. So I'm really clear. So I guess I hear what you're saying and I would say if you don't want to do that, make sure that they like I'm really upfront and I explain why we don't do that. It's too much of a burden for us at Christmas when business starts to slow down. So from our perspective as a business, I prefer to pay them more throughout the year and give them bonuses, like $100 every quarter or $200 every quarter. But I always wondered about that 13th month. It was such a particular cultural thing. And yeah, I did notice that there was like, what, you don't do the 13th month? So yeah, I hear that. I do hear that. So once I've got so in my Google, it's really great. The form tells you a list of the emails, it goes through the responses and I go through and start to identify the short list of people. Now before I go and do anything else, I go and use online jobs because it's got this amazing tool and facility that gives you the background check. And I actually didn't know what it was until A friend who uses the. The users your site told me, and I upgraded to the other plated the full plan because I'd been missing out on this vital piece of information, which kind of goes a little bit into the culture, but it gives you more comfort in who you're going to interview. So we go in and we take the email and pop it into online jobs and we do a search and we have a bit of a look at the applicant's profile and check that it is marrying up with what their application form. So if their skills haven't been updated, you kind of want to go, okay, make sure that those match what we're asking for. And then when we go into the. And also you can see their level of English because they'll do the C2 advanced level of English. So that's a really good check as well if I'm wanting them to communicate with emails to clients. And then we have a look at the background check. And that was like, wow, this is like, this is an amazing facility that you've got on the site. Because I could see you're not telling me not to employ this person. You're just saying, here's a bit more information and transparency around their activity. And it may not mean that you have the little red yellow warning box and the red warning box and you can still read it the way you want. So in Covid, your system is automatically going, look, these people have got a lot of activity. It may be that they're applying for a lot of jobs, but during COVID you kind of have to go, you know what? A lot of people lost their jobs. So, you know, it's understandable that they're trying, that they're sending out lots of emails. So the one. And then the other one is, you know how many profiles are linked. And I know that from my other agency friends that have Philippine staff, that there might be three people in the house that are all sharing the job. And that may be okay with you as well. That may not be a problem as an employer, but for me, I wanted them to be. For me, I'm on Skype, I'm on teamwork, I'm on chat. I want them to be live there for me if I need them. And if there's a couple of people and there's a lag, I kind of don't want that issue. But when I go down and have a look at the profiles, even if there's one, sometimes it's a husband and wife because they've got the same name. And I Can see the photos of the people. And I kind of go, you know what? That's okay. I don't mind. It's a husband and wife. He's doing one job and she's doing the other. And, you know, together they're supporting their family. So I really like that. But we definitely use that tool. That was an amazing tool and helped us actually cut out a couple of people in the application process. And then I do a Skype call. So I get on Skype, if they don't have a camera, I understand that that could be a technology thing. That actually hasn't been a barrier for me. I love the ones that do. I think I probably see the ones that do have the camera and show themselves to me in a little more light. But it hasn't stopped me employing somebody because of that. And I've got an amazing young chap, Onorato, who is just fantastic. Like the employee from heaven. He is just magical. So he never had a video. So, you know, it goes to show that that doesn't have to be a barrier. So I do this Skype call and then I'm very clear again. I repeat exactly the offer. And then I put them on a trial. Now I do a page trial before I do a paid trial. I talk about the salary, I talk about the hourly rate and what. And they will say in US Dollars. And I will always pay in Australian dollars. I can't be paying in US Dollars because it changes. But we are very fair. Yeah, it just. US Dollars is too hard. You're laughing at me.

No, no, I get it. I get that you have to. You're going to pay in US Dollars. So this is an interesting conversation. Why do you pay. Yeah, why do you pay hourly instead of a salary?

Because I want them on eight hours a day or six hours a day. And I don't know, I just think because I get more transparency around it maybe. I don't know.

Do you track it? How do you know?

So we use them and they're in teamwork, and they are. We have tasks, have set amount of hours that we know it will take. We know enough about how much work takes. They. They're in there, they're on chat. I'm talking to them all day about things. I've got a QA person that is following up on tasks. So I don't know because I kind of. I guess I trust and I know I kind of have a sense that when someone's taking the micy, then they're not. I suppose I haven't gone through enough people to feel duped, you know, like the people. I've been really lucky with the people. And through the recruitment process, I know some people use time. Doctor.

Okay, so you're basically, I mean, if you're expecting them to work a number of hours a week and you're chatting with them, you're basically paying a salary. I mean, you're not, you're paying hourly, but it's pretty close to a salary because you know, oh, you're online at this time because they're on the same time zone as you, which is different for me because they're on different time. So I'm never, I don't see them chatting all day long. That's not even a thing for me.

So.

So that's interesting. It's just a different way of doing it.

So tell me, why do you do salary? Talk to me about the salary thing just so I can learn from you.

So in the Philippines there is so much temporary and part time work that like it's an issue. It's an issue in the Philippines. And I've had people say like, you're working for $8 an hour and they're willing to come work full time, full time for a guaranteed $400 a month. Like $8 an hour at 160 hours a month is a heck of a lot more than $400 a month. Right. So any, almost every time I've ever asked someone, they prefer the salary versus hourly. And then just like you said, if someone isn't performing. I know, like it doesn't take a time tracker to know that you're not putting in the time. I know and I know really, really fast, you know, so, so that's why I don't do hourly.

Usually, I guess we know what we pay. We, they do 40 hours a week. So it kind of is a salary. It's just my negotiation. Yeah. My negotiation is about you'll be getting paid this an hour, but you are getting paid a salary monthly. Like we budget our cost of goods and our, you know, outgoings. We know that we've got, you know, and we split them. So we have two that get paid on the two that get paid, three that get paid at the beginning of the month and three that get paid in the middle of the month.

Interesting. So that you can split when you, when your outflows are.

Yeah, because we're not like, we're not like an SEO agency that gets a monthly salary. We're websites. So we're hustle. We're hustling all the time, you know, so we kind of. So it's a much better way to do, to run our business.

So first of all, as an agency, my first question is how. What do you have people doing for you? Who are the four or five people that you have working for you? What do they do?

So we've got so Kel who is gone through where she's in our sixth year with us and up to two babies. She's about to go on maternity leave. So she does WordPress and we taught her how to do Shopify and she's learned how to do Access Alley, which is a membership platform. So we've got one developer doing that we've got done who is on Shopify and WordPress and it does a little bit of API work. Justy who we're just trialing actually, who is amazing that we just got from you two weeks ago, who is phenomenal. He's doing some. He's fixed an API problem that we didn't even know how to fix and he's doing WordPress and Shopify. Then we've got Edgar again, WordPress and Shopify. And then I've got develop a designer, I've got a web designer, Randy and we've got Kazelli who's qa. So she's just, she's replaced another qa and we will actually probably elevate her and she will have someone. So she will then become digital manager and then promote her because she's got some really good ideas and then we'll get her a QA person. So there's for developers, a designer and a qa.

Okay, so I'm going to go back to the application process now. Yes, because for me you skipped something or maybe you didn't, maybe you don't. So you post a job, you push people to the Google form, they fill it out, then you go through that and you like look at it and then you verify it against their online jobs profile and their background checks. And. And then you said you schedule a Skype interview. You immediately schedule a Skype interview. Like, what if you had 50 applications and you had 30 good ones, do you schedule 30 Skype interviews? What do you do?

So no. So I would email them first. So I emailed them and I've never had 50 great applicants, to be honest. Because with web design, with web development, it's easy for you to see which people know what they're doing. Because if their sites are slow, then I'm not going to use them.

Cover that for me for A second. Because so many people want to hire a web designer or web developer, whatever. They have no clue how. Tell me what you're talking about. It's easy to see if they know what they're doing.

Okay, so when you have an application, I ask for five examples of previous work, right, in WordPress, five examples of previous work in Shopify, and I will go to each of those links right now, let's say I have an applicant that uses the same, that uses the same jobs in each section. They're only showing me five jobs. I have a tick box that says, how many years have you been working? Less than two years. Two to four years. Four to six. Six plus. I'm not going to get something. I'm not going to take anyone that's two years below. I'm going to. I'm looking for the four to six kind of person. But I put in the two years because it's a good way to eliminate people. So then I'll have a look. If they don't have enough work examples, I might go back to them and say if the examples look good. So if I click on the link and I go to the website and it's still there. I'm not going to judge them if it's not a great design because they may not have done the design. It's not their fault that the business owner has no design skills. It's more about the functionality. So I'm going to look at the site and I'm going to go, is it fast loading? I'll get one of my other developers to check the code just, just in Web Inspector, just to see if they can see if there's anything in there that's a problem. It's not a lot you can see from the front end, but you can see enough. Mainly the speed and how the pages kind of. Are there any 404 pages. It's really the smoothness of the site is my main thing. Yeah. So I mean, for someone who's not like, if you're wanting to hire yourself a web developer and you're not an agency, like it's easier for an agency because, you know. But if you're a single person and you want to hire a web developer to support you, then you're probably not as cluey like, it's just an intuitive thing. I can go to a site and go, you know what, that's actually okay. I think they've imported it, they've used a theme and it's actually looking alright. It's probably those that Are, you know, if you want to hire a web developer and you've never built a website, it's going to be. Definitely going to be harder for you. Yeah. So it's an intuitive thing, but I think the one thing would be if you're going to hire someone to do that work for you, you've got to have enough jobs done otherwise they've not come across enough issues to solve. So that would be your first tip, is make sure they've got enough jobs and if there's aren't enough showing on the application, email them and say, I want to see more work, please. And if they don't have it, then you eliminate them.

Yeah, great. I love it. That was so good. So good. Okay, so go back to your. Go back to your process. You've never had 30 great inter. Three great people. So you email them, you email them, you ask some questions. What do you do before you do the Skype interview?

Yes, I just say, what kind of work are you looking for? What are you doing currently? What's your capacity? Give me some examples of more work. What is your ideal? So what job? Where are you working? How many jobs have you got? Hours? How many hours are you wanting? Why are you looking for work and what is your ideal scenario? I want to know from them what they're looking for, because if they're looking for something, I want to tell them what I want because they'll just go, yes, yes, yes. I want to know from them what they're looking for, you know what I mean? And then also how much are they getting paid and how much would they like to get paid? Because we do a scale on the application and I'd like them to. I don't want to feel like. I don't want them to feel like they're being taken for a ride or duped or do you know what I mean? So if they say, I think I'm worth 14 and I look at their work and I go, you know what? I reckon you are worth 14, that's great. But if they go, I'm after 18, I go, that's actually too much for our agency. And I don't think you can add enough value. You can't be good enough to do that, unfortunately. So I would go, that's probably too much. And then we stop. Do you know what I mean? We stop the interview process. So I have a scale that I'm willing to go to for a developer. So I whittle that down to probably three or four, really. And then I will do A Skype.

Call with those three or four you just basically described. You just described the way that I recruit. I mean, it's pretty stinking similar.

Yeah, yeah. And I think we have really good success. Like, you know, we've refined the process, and it's always exciting. Like, I'm always really excited to see who applies. That's what I love about it, too, is because. Because you're looking. This is about your business. Do you know what I mean? This is about your business. And if you're hiring people, it means that your business is growing. So it's really exciting to see who's out there that can really make our business better, give a really good product to our customers, and we get to make money as well. Like, this is a profitable business model. You know what I mean? We can keep growing. I can't replace me because I'm the salesperson, but I can still kind of make the process of our business better. So it's always really exciting to find and finding this guy Justy, you know, he's just been. Yeah, really, like, it's exciting. It's exhilarating. I love it. So, yeah, so it's really good. So we then offer them a trial, and I'll say it's a paid trial and I'll do a paid trial and a lesser amount to what I'm offering them.

Right?

And I'll say it'll either be a project or it'll be work for us for a month. Okay. You'll get brought in as a. You get access to the team, you get a project to work on. And we communicate daily. Okay. And we've got milestones, and you deliver on those milestones. I have done project work before where it's just been. Build me one site and it's not been. And then I get my staff. This is a trick. I get my other experienced staff member to check their work. As we're progressing now, here's a really good tip, right? For someone who doesn't have, hasn't hired, they're looking to grow an agency or they're looking to hire a couple of people. I got them to do things in three stages. So I got them to. They got given an HTML, like a PSD file, and they got to turn it into an HTML thing. Then the next stage was that they had to make it responsive. And then at every stage, I got my developer to go and check, what's the code like? Is it fast enough? Is it really responsive? So that was actually quite a good process in the beginning. But I think we're hiring more experienced people. So for. I think that would be a really good tip for someone that's never hired a developer before is to maybe find someone else that can check their work for them. Because we did end up with someone whose code was not great. So I got to eliminate them in the trial. So that was really good. We agree on the rate of the trial, we agree on the conditions of the trial. We pay weekly, so they do a week, then we pay the following Monday.

It's so good. I mean you're. I love what you have created. It's. If more people would follow this, they would succeed like this. It's so, it's so clear why you're succeeding.

So, yeah, I think, you know, I think one of the one things, and particularly because I helped this client actually hire a VA and she wants them to do her social media management and you know, she just wanted the world and she's going, well, I want them to be able to do this and this and this. There's no point otherwise I'm going. There's no human that would know how to do that. Like really get real. Just because you're hiring someone from the Philippines and you're going to be paying them in your terms, peanuts. You know, you've got to be not so greedy, like be realistic and then look for the one thing that is the non negotiable, then help them to grow and develop the skill in the other thing that you want. You know, I think that's really, really important. And we made a mistake in a recent VA QA that we hired a girl who didn't have the core thing that we needed and it kind of didn't work because she couldn't. We tried to develop her and it just didn't work. Whereas the new lady that we found, Kazelli, is she's got the core thing. So that was a really, a really good learning.

That's such a good point. Like I had someone email me today and said, hey, I can only put in three skills on the job post. I want to put in more. How do I put it? Like, no, you can't put in more. You're only looking for one primary skill. This is why we did what we did. You have one primary skill and you can put in two, two secondary skills and that's it. I love that, like focus on the core thing and then everything else can be upskilled, like you said. And if they don't have the core thing, it doesn't matter how good the Rest of them looks for this position like it's not working.

No, no. And I think that just doing your own application form, really, really good because it makes them. They have to. There's an effort. They're going to make a bit of effort to fill it out as well and to show that they really want this and they. And a person is worthy of it, just like any other kind of application.

Is there anything else specific? So we've gone. We've. We've gone over half an hour and I like to keep these. I don't want to take any more of your time. Is there anything else specific that you would like that you want to share with people? Like something you feel like you may have missed or like you. I mean, you've done so well with this and people would do so well to follow your advice. Do you have anything else that you would last things you want to share.

Really appreciate them and give them. And give them positive feedback. You know, like every day I'm telling one of them what a great job they've done, if they've done a great job. And if they haven't, I kind of get on a Skype call and say, this isn't quite working. And I think it's because of this. I think that they have often been used by employers and not appreciated. Like they're intelligent. I mean, when I say they, it's sounding a bit patronizing, but I mean, as a, you know, a collection of people who are offering us really good quality labor at a great price that allow us to offer great services at a good price to our market. They, you know, extremely educated, talented people, you know, and they. I think that why my team sent me flowers. And I know an agency that's been using, you know, you guys for over 15 years. And they're a married couple that have an agency. They've never been sent flowers by their team. And I think that's because I just say, you know, that's a really great job. The client loves the design that you've done. Good on you, or thank you so much for working overtime because it was a really hard week. But we got there in the end and congratulations. Look at what you've helped build. You know, just help recognize that, recognise and appreciate the work. Because everyone, you know, it's like little puppies. Puppies, like being patted. We all like being, you know, acknowledged.

We do. And I think a lot of people are like, oh, that's common sense. But you don't realize in the Philippines this is critical. Like, this is it's more important in the Philippines than it is in your culture. Wherever you are. It's more important in the Philippines. I love that you said they're not minions, and that's kind of a. You're right. It's kind of an attitude of like, oh, just. Just fire them. Just get another one. What? That's not how it is. And if you will learn to appreciate them and treat them well, you'll have an amazing experience like you're having with six people. Right. It's not that you got lucky in this person that you hired. It's that you're good at managing people and you're good at recruiting people and it's working out really, really well for you.

Yeah. And like you said, I'll just fire them. Well, if maybe you'd taken a bit more time and care, finding the right person and maybe hiring two or three people to get the jobs done that you want rather than thinking you need one, then you wouldn't need to be firing them and just getting, you know, disposing and saying, well, there'll be another one there. You do that process well. It's, you know, it's like in any culture and country, isn't it, that you know that opportunity cost of losing an employee and then indoctrinating them into your culture and how you do things. You know, you're losing all this stuff every time you have to hire someone. So just do it right first time. Take a bit more effort and care. And if you need two people to do the job, get two people to do the job, you know, and use online jobs to do it.

I love it. It's so good. Johanna, thank you so much. This has been so awesome. You are clearly running a good business. It's clear why you're succeeding. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing with our audience what you're doing.

Yeah, thanks for having me. It was lovely to have your attention for 30 minutes.

Thanks. I appreciate it. And I'll talk to you later.

Okay, take care. Bye.