The New Way Smart Contractors Are Scaling Their Businesses

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're talking about how to build a remote team inside of your home service business with Angela Chernowski. Thanks so much for joining us today, Angela.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, for sure. I know we met a couple of weeks back and I was like, you have to come on the show because a lot of buzz right now around building remote teams in home service and who all needs to come into the office and who doesn't. And all these things are swirling. And I'm very interested in picking your brain and learning about how you even built your business around this whole concept. So could you take maybe 2 minutes and just give the listeners context around how you built this and what you actually do?

Yeah, absolutely. So Unique Genius is our tool to help home service businesses. That's where we specialize with a cost-effective solution to scale. through the use of elite virtual teams. And our team members are all based in the Philippines, and that's how they're cost-effective. Yeah. So you save money by the less cost of hiring someone in the US, no payroll taxes, all of those things. But they are the most incredible, wise, hardworking, experienced people who are ready to lock arms with US businesses. And this, I had several relationships with people in the Philippines, but saw a gap of people trying to do it themselves. We're missing the culture piece, weren't getting experienced people. So started this company. I've been an entrepreneur for over 25 years and started this company as a solution in my own businesses and people that I was coaching and consulting so that we could provide a solution that worked Great to fill in those gaps.

Yeah, I love it. So at my home service business, we had 4 CSRs, customer service reps, 28 technicians. We had someone that was a bookkeeper, all of these roles. And we all came to the office every single day, 6:30 AM, you know, until 5:00 PM. And getting the owner to be like, hey, we should have someone outside, was like, what do you mean we're not coming to the office? So what would you say are some roles that you've seen that can be effective as a remote side for someone from the Philippines? Because I can already tell you some of our clients and some people that I know are like, well, there's an accent when they're on the phones. So I don't really like that. Or some of those things. I don't want you to overcome that objection just yet, but like, what are some of the roles that you see are the most effective? And then we can talk about that. Some of those issues.

Yeah. So really anything on the backend of a business, anything in that admin of your business can be filled by someone remotely on a virtual team and is a solution that we do for home service businesses. So depending on the size of the business, we help several businesses that it is, it is the man on the truck. You are the owner-operator and you are still answering your phone.

Yeah.

And we're like, stop, stop answering your phone. Stop doing your QuickBooks and books, you know, at 10 o'clock at night and get out of your own way, operate in your genius and work on growing the business and let us be that first person. And that's one of my favorite things is helping a person get out of that and giving them the courage, walking them through. In that situation, it's an owner that doesn't have a lot of SOPs in place and we're walking them through, helping them let go, but it makes such a difference in their business. So, so that role—

Can I say one thing on that? A lot of people slip up on this and it's really important what you just said is that usually they think that if they're going to grow their business, then they need to get another technician first. And that just creates more chaos and more bookkeeping and more admin. When, if you remove the admin layer first, then that frees you up to give better service to your clients, sell more stuff, and then you can build from there up. So I agree completely with that.

Yes. And it's really the most economical hire. So, um, by hiring someone with us and not somebody on the ground, you know, you are, um, for about $2,000 a month, You, the time that you can replace that 40 hours a week in admin is exponential, the sales and the work that you can do in your company. And like you said, versus another technician, you can go out there and work for more than that. Yeah. So that's the first position. They, they are the CSR. They're answering the phone. They're doing some organic social media marketing. They're doing your bookkeeping for you. They're doing email marketing for you. They are doing happy calls to your clients, adding on more services as your company grows. We become the easy button. And then larger companies, larger home service companies, we are their easy button. They just are like, I need, I now need a new person in accounting. I'm ready to focus on marketing and want somebody full-time doing my social media, paid ads, email marketing.

Exactly.

And things like that. And, or I want additional, you know, CSRs. So then you get to expand and have people in all those roles and departments.

Yeah, I love it. One that I tell people that would be great, and a lot of people want this, is if you have an admin person or a marketing person who can get you relationships with other business partners in the area, that could be someone who's like a cold caller, inside sales rep, but they're building relationships with B2B partnerships. And it's like, who's going to do that? Well, you could have someone remote do that all day and it's just building partnerships. So there's a lot of like, it's not, Yeah, someone could post on your social media, somebody could do this thing, but there's other things in your business that you're like, I should do that, it's going to help me grow, but who's going to do that? And they don't have to be boots on the ground necessarily. So I completely agree with you. I think when people hear this concept, well, the first thing that they hear is, okay, well, how do I get them into my culture? How do I manage these people? To give you context, most of the people that are our clients and probably listen to the show are like $1 million to $10 million. So they have like a bones of things. Right. But then it's like, okay, if I want to get another remote CSR to overflow calls or, you know, take a second call, a caller, How do I get them to be inside of my culture to know how we do, like how we vibe? Not like, how do I use ServiceTitan or Jobber or something like that? But like, how do I like get them in my culture?

Yes. Uh, and culture is such an important piece. I do wanna go back and reflect on when you said there are all these things I could be doing in my business. A lot of times when somebody hires somebody or they wanna go hire a second person, they're like, I don't have tasks for a 40-hour-a-week person. I can't, I can't think of what another full-time person will do. They aren't just taking things off your plate or taking things off the admin's plate that you already have. They are able to do all of those outreach things, Exactly. cold calls, things, and grow your business. So culture is a, is a huge piece of it. And some people can't imagine, how would I, how is this person that's not sitting in my office being part of our culture? And we help you bridge that gap. If you already have somebody in your office, it's even easier because as an owner, um, it is harder to, you know, offload that person and give— if you already have this admin in your office and it's like they're getting an assistant, they're getting a second person to work with.

Yes.

We directly work with that person, not just you as the owner, um, to onboard them and to get them a part of your culture. We work with how can you— they have screen time every day. Um, and it becomes— they become just like a person in your culture. We have 2 home service businesses as well, a pressure washing business and a lighting company. We have a team in the Philippines. They are up on the wall. They are on the screen every day so that everyone in the company knows their name, knows their picture. They are part of the wins. If we're having a company breakfast and everyone's eating breakfast, they're on the screen and we send them breakfast in the Philippines. So they're doing the things with us. We do take care of those details as well. You know, if you're in ServiceTitan or Jobber, They get a certification and come all trained up in that. They get to be part of a masterminding group that works in lawn and landscaping in Jobber or that, you know, works in washing and that. So we take care of helping support the details so they can come back the best to you, but really supporting that culture piece in your business and then allowing them to be a part of a bigger culture of people working abroad as well.

Yeah. Something that was really hard for me, I was, I was the culture guy. Like I would be there at 6:30 with the 28 texts, you know, I'll bring burritos. Anita's Burritos and have breakfast burritos and joking around all this stuff. And then when I started my company, we're all remote. We have people in the States, we have people overseas, 24 people all remote. And we got around 6 people and one of our team members was like, we should do some culture stuff. I'm like, I'm a culture guy. Everyone loves me. What do you mean? And it's like, no, you actually have to be deliberate about, okay, let's do an all Slack team huddle wins, like a Something fun virtually. And I think that it forces you to not just pretend like you do culture because you're a nice guy and like you're there joking around with the techs or something like that, but like actually like build systems to build culture inside of your business.

Mm-hmm.

And from what you're saying is like, yeah, we naturally would like pick up breakfast and give it to the CSRs, you know, to say thank you and also just to have fun. But it's being more deliberate when you have a virtual staff of how do I make them feel included in this mission that we're on as well. which I think is a big shift. But when you do it right, you get a lot of buy-in, especially what I know about people in the Philippines is that they really just want someone to care about them and not just treat them like another task person. And if you give them a career and a company and a culture, like they'll be amazing, then they'll do amazing work for your team. What have you seen as some successes of like, if you think about like those $1 to $10 million? Because I think before when we talked, you had mentioned like there's companies that literally like scale through this process with you, but what are some success stories?

Yes. So yeah, in that $1 to $10 million range, that's where you're getting new people and that it's, it's the easy button. Right. And I love seeing that of, it's a company and they can just quickly add people. Hiring is a hard thing to do in hiring team members and staying ahead of that hiring process. And we take that backend and all of it and just make it easy for you so that as you're getting bigger, You literally can get an experienced team member that comes experienced in your CRM, comes experienced in the industry training, ready to go, ready to make a difference so that as you're growing and you're projecting, you're just like, yes, I need that accountant. Or

yeah,

I'm gonna invest in, we're gonna add a person and they are gonna be doing those cold calls to commercial clients. That's one of the fun ones. So I'll talk about that.

Yeah.

Is, um, People that make an investment and like, this is better than throwing $2,000 of spaghetti at ads, right? You're getting—

Exactly.

Doing cold calls to commercial clients, researching their property so that you as a business owner can, and layering them up, getting estimates and things ready so you as a business owner can go make those touches that they've already made warm and close those deals to you. And we have clients in that range that are just racking up commercial business that they have never done before. They were only focusing on residential. Because they now have estimates and everything teed up and those closes are really easy.

Yeah, I love that. That's why I brought it up because it's like low-hanging fruit. Most people don't know how to do it or who's going to do it or who do I hire and do I need to hire a $200,000 salesperson? Like, no, you don't. You could just tee up your stuff with something like this. So I completely agree. So someone listening to this might say, okay, so it sounds like I can get virtual or remote help and it's less expensive than the States. What would you say about someone who is like, okay, well, I'll just go to Upwork and I'll find someone there.

Well, there are many places to go get a virtual team member and Upwork or places, online jobs. There are many places to do it yourself. One, you've never hired remotely before. And so you are starting this whole search process, not knowing what you're searching for, not knowing what you are vetting for. And so you're taking yourself and spending all this time. Doing that when you could be spending time growing your business. So we save you the time in doing it, and we've invested a lot in knowing what that vetting process looks like, doing tons of scientific assessments to know how people score. We take what the best CSRs in the home service industry look like, remote or in the US, what, how they score on assessments, and we only give you people that match that benchmark exactly.

Hmm.

And we've spent a lot, a lot of time building up a very robust culture in the Philippines so that we have an incredible reputation and we can attract the top talent. We go over and do a big in-person summit. We have so many benefits for them. And so the top talent doesn't want to be on Upwork gambling their life and career away, working for a business that they don't know or trust. So we can attract the very top people and be able to match you with them. And then Like I said, they come with this experience and this mastermind supporting them so that you day one, not only didn't have to go through that whole process, but you get somebody who is supported by a culture and can come in and perform for you. If you get somebody off of Upwork, you're going to have to have all your SOPs, everything ironed out, and then tell them exactly what to do. One of my favorite things is we get matched, you know, we match a business owner with someone and you can go to your new person. And say, hey, I want to go do commercial. I want commercial business. And they can figure out the process and get the results for you, not the other way around of you having to map it all out for them.

Yeah, I love it. And I would completely agree. When I started my business 7 years ago, I read 4-Hour Workweek and Tim Ferriss was like, oh yeah, you need, you know, you should get virtual help. And I'm like, heck, I'm one guy out here doing all these things. Let me go find someone. And I found this woman on Upwork. And let me just say, she ended up being awesome. She still works with me to this day, but she left Upwork and said, let me come work with you full-time. However, that is not the norm at all because that one experience was great, but I had about 5 or 6 other experiences that were abysmal. And so to your point, you could go through that trial and error and spend years and all this stuff trying to figure it out, or you could go and find a company that this is what they specialize in and helps Find remote work, which who, not how, you know, obviously makes complete sense. So

yes,

I agree with you. I am curious about how you get people trained up on like Jobber or ServiceTitan and these other tools. Um, what does the training look like from your company's end to prepare these people? And it might not just be the tech stack tools, but anything else that they'd get trained on.

Yeah. So one, depending when we meet a new client for a discovery call, we are learning everything about your business, your style, The software that you use, what they want, you know, you want them to be trained in so that we can find the right person for you. Sometimes that means somebody that has experience in the different CRMs or ex— you know, it might be something very technical, like they need a lot of engineering experience and we'll be doing things with like supplementing and roofing or estimates and project management. So we figure that out, what the skillset that you need. Our accountants have accounting degrees. Mm-hmm. And those, you know, they're not just coming to us for a little bit of training. They've had years of experience for it. And then we do work directly with ServiceTitan, with Jobber, with Housecall Pro, with LMN, um, to get training from them so that they can be trained up on the process and not only come to you with training. One of my favorite things is I just got back from ServiceTitan's Pantheon, um, last night.

Oh, sweet.

Um, we have ongoing relationships and they stay part of a mastermind. With people that are, are working in those softwares. And so you as the owner don't always, I mean, technology, AI agents are insane. Like what these CRMs are doing and how fast they are changing.

Yeah.

That way you as the owner don't have to be the one staying up on it. Like as things change and roll out and the new features, they can be updated on those and help you implement them and take advantage of the best things in your business.

Yeah, I love that. I think everyone can attest that all these CRMs constantly have new things coming out, and then usually the owner like hears about on a podcast or sees something or sees something in the platform and then tries to figure it out. And if you could have someone on your team that was learning these things and bringing them to the table, that would be a huge advantage for most business owners. So completely agree. Yes. I do want to talk a little bit about something that I think is going to be really big in the next 2 to 3 years, which is virtual estimating. with people that are not, you know, in your specific area, but that are remote. James from Live Switch connected us. And I'm curious on any success stories that you have with that of virtual estimating and of putting those inside sales reps in virtual opportunities. What are your thoughts? How's that work?

Yes. We live in the age of Amazon same-day delivery and That has trained how we all interact with companies and everything in the world. And so just 2 years ago, just even a year ago, you could call a home service company and they could, you know, speed to lead meant that they answered the phone, but they could take a couple days to give you an estimate and that would be okay. You got ahold of them, you talked to somebody, and then you'd wait. Anymore, if somebody decides that they want a service done, they want lights hung on their home, for example, for Christmas, they're going to make the decision that day. They're not going with who just answered the phone. They want to make a decision on who gave them the estimate that day. And so if you're the company that they can call and they can know exactly what their house is going to look like and get a price and make a decision today, that's who they're going to go with.

Mm-hmm.

And so we love Live Switch. It means that your virtual team member in the Philippines, when your client calls in, they can answer the phone. And when I say answer the phone, I'm doing this. They're answering the phone on their computer with the headset.

Yeah.

Yeah. But they can send the client a quick text message. The client goes outside, walks around their house while they're still on the phone and developing that relationship, nurturing that relationship, building trust with the client. They are building a virtual estimate in the background. Can show the client the same estimate while on the phone, or at least within 15, 30 minutes, a full beautiful rendering of their house and an estimate so that the client can make a decision. Sometimes the virtual team member is making that sale. Sometimes if you're not ready to pass that sales role onto them, they've still nurtured that relationship. They've gotten the estimate done and you can quickly pass it off to a salesperson or the owner to actually Close that deal.

I love it. For people listening, their mind's probably blown. Like, what? That can be a thing? So yes, it is. And I believe that it's going to be more and more for all trades. Like the example you gave is great, but let's say it's a water heater and it's like, well, let me just get on a quick call, go down to your water heater, you know, get a picture of it, get the vent, you get the code of what it is, and then let me plug it in and then see what it is. You can get it, you can get an estimate pretty quickly. I think that the new normal is going to be speed to lead, but it's going to be the speed to face or whatever James calls it. It's like, you know, race to face. That's what he says. How fast can you get a face to the face? Um, so I love that. Um, I'm, uh, so people that are listening to this are probably like, okay, like sign me up. What are some of the things that are pitfalls that people run into when they get remote, remote help or virtual help for their business?

So one of the objections we kind of brought up at the beginning is Are they going to sound like they're across the world? And we know people have had bad experiences. The poor banks and credit card companies that tried to use AI and outsource before anyone, they just did it wrong and gave everyone a bad experience, right? Like, first they had Mike from India and we couldn't understand them, and now those companies have bad AI answering the

phone. Yeah, yeah.

And so we make sure that we get you somebody with great American English. You get to meet them on Zoom. Make sure that you are proud of their voice representing your company and, and like their energy as well. So that's one is, are they gonna sound like they're from here? Yeah. And you get to make that decision and distinction. And then second is the, like, how am I gonna communicate with them? Some people just can't figure out like, what does my day-to-day look like if they're not sitting next to me?

Exactly. Yeah. It's very true. It's very common because we had a guy who's like $7 million and every, you know, he's been doing business for 30 years. And he put a job posting on Indeed, and he got someone that applied from Arizona. And he was like, this person is so good. I wish they lived here. And I'm like, dude, what? They can be remote and you can still interact with them. He's like, oh my gosh, what do I do? How do I talk with them? How am I out? All these things, right? It's not even like in the Philippines or something else. And there's like this whole new world that's out there for home service businesses. So I'm curious, you know, sorry to hijack your thing, but like, Yeah, tell me, tell me.

It's funny because when people can't imagine that, I was like, don't you have family that doesn't live right next to you? Like, talk to them.

Yeah, yeah.

And so face-to-face, like when James says that, like it's a race to face, is that does make a big difference when we walk people through that, like getting them on, not just having a conversation or a text, but seeing them on the screen, putting them on the screen in You know, if you have an office and there's other people in the office, get a television up where you have them and they can see in a webcam and they can see people. I encourage people to use their phone and just FaceTime and like look at them eyeball to eyeball and just have a huddle in the morning. Yeah. Get on the same page. Um, what are we doing? And, but otherwise throughout the day, you communicate with your team just like anybody else. You send a text message, you send a voice memo, you're doing updates. Just like they were there. And if it's important to you to be in the office, just put them in the office virtually.

Yeah, I love it. So this exact situation, I was like, okay, well, do you have technicians that are out in the field every day? How do you talk to them? Do you have, do you have another store that's 30 miles away? Like, how do you talk to them? You don't see them every day, right? So it, it's just expanding that. Um, the 2 things that I found is the daily huddle is really good. We have a daily huddle every day at 9:30 in our different pods and teams and everything. So then everyone is just like, get together 15 minutes, like what's going on, all that stuff. And then another really important one that I found, and this is not even just if you have a remote team, but just in general, is doing one-to-ones. But it's even more important if you're in remote because just that one-on-one experience for even 30 minutes a week or 30 minutes every other week to just like, what's your goals? What are you working on? What are your blockers? How can I help you and support you?

Yeah.

It goes so far in building the relationship and they're not just out on an island.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay, cool. You would agree with those things?

I agree with all of those. Like the more FaceTime that you can get, I'm a big believer in, like you said, that morning huddle, just, we call it same page meeting in the morning. Like, are we all on the same page in the morning? And then like you said, one-to-ones are really important and not missing those. And I, it's more important than remote employees, but it's surprising the amount of Leaders who don't do that in their companies. So I highly suggest you do that with everybody. Yes. Like whatever your cadence is, allow people time that as leaders, a lot of times the only people get you as a one-to-one is if they're in trouble. Yeah.

Yeah.

And so let there be time where there can be proactivity and that you're building this relationship and getting them on the same page of how did they have success in your business? How does what they do every day make a difference in their own dreams and your business reaching their goals?

Yeah. Another question, objection that comes up is like laws, taxes. How do I pay these people? Those types of things. What are your thoughts or how do you do that?

Yeah. And that's one thing that we take care of for you. You pay us one, once we get, you know, you as a client, you pay us a monthly fee. We take care of all of their payroll. Benefits and everything. So, um, you're paying us just like you pay your accountant or your lawyer or another vendor, and you don't have to worry about anything. We take care of everything on the backend. They do work for you and only for you. So they— we only do full-time placement, not part-time contract free agent work. And that's important because you want somebody who is a career professional and dedicated just to you. So they work for you and only for you, and they are a team member. In your business.

Yeah.

Just for you. Um, but we take care of all of the rest of that so you don't have to worry about it.

Yeah. Okay, good. How do y'all make money? Do you do placement fees or is it like, you know, they get paid and then there's a portion to you or something?

Yes. So we don't do any upfront or placement fees. We used to, and it is very common in the industry. Yeah. But for home service businesses, I, I really have a passion of locking arms with them and we want to take that risk. or that upfront expense out of it. And so we believe, you know, when we do it right, we're going to be partners with you for a long, long time. And we have clients that have been with us for years and we help them continue to grow and scale. So we, you pay us their monthly salary and we do have a portion of that, that, you know, it's their salary, their benefits, their expenses for going to the summit, all of the things that we do. Yeah. And then their Is some on top of that. Yeah.

Makes sense. Because there's some companies just like a headhunter that you would find in the States or something where it's like, yeah, we'll pay you a percentage of whatever their thing is. And then we give you a guarantee of like a couple months or whatever that they're around, whatever that sounds like. And then even in the States too, there's like, hey, no, we'll help you find a person and then we'll help you manage the thing. And I think it's what I'll say on my experience is that if there's someone that can handle all of the payment and the benefits, because like You listening to this might not know this, but like in a lot of these other countries, like benefits is not a normal thing. And when there's a company that can help them with that, it's a huge advantage on their side to like do great work and be a part of this. So there's, there's a lot that goes into it. That's not just like slap some benefits on a W-2 employee. Like we think of normally.

Yes. And, and that security and support and being taken care of our entire leadership team is on the ground in the Philippines, boots on the ground in the Philippines so that They're really taken care of and not just the benefits that you would think of, but the professional development opportunities, the opportunity to be able to fly in and go to a summit and be with people. You know, we as business owners always want to be part of masterminds and bettering ourselves. And it's great to allow your team

to

be part of those opportunities as well. One, it means that they're bringing back the best to you. They're constantly upleveling themselves. to be better for your team, but it also really keeps them loyal so that, you know, they might love your business and your culture, but we add that extra piece of taking care of and family and tribe. So they're not going to look for an opportunity just because somebody is offering them some more money. Um, you know, they, this really keeps them a part of your business for a long time.

Yeah. I love it. Um, really great to dig in, Angela. Like so good. Like this is a big need for a lot of people. So I love the business. Um, can you share where should people go to learn more about you or if they wanna talk about their business, what they sh— what should they do?

Yeah, you can find me anywhere on social @angela_chinowski. Our website is unique-genius.com. And if this sparked your interest or had curiosity, this isn't a sales pitch, but we love to talk to business owners, whether we're the solution or whether you just needed to hash it out over a discovery call and an in-person solution is in place. But We love helping business owners figure out like, how do you get out of your way? How do you stop being the bottleneck? How do you have some courage to hire some help to get you the freedom back in your business and help you scale?

Love it. Well, everyone listening, if this piqued interest for you, definitely reach out to Angela. If you know a business owner that's like, hey dude, you need to listen to this, be sure to share this because this helps every business, not even just your business. I'm sure it sparked some interest for you as well. So Thanks for listening, Angela. Thanks for joining us today, and I look forward to continue the conversation with you.

Thank you so much, Phil.