Distantjob Podcast

Ismail Aly and Ranya Barakat are Co-Founders of the IDS Agency, an inbound marketing and sales shop located in Santiago, Chile. Their company is 82% remote, with team members spread across 6 different countries. In this episode, our guests and Luis share some insights about managing a marketing agency remotely and how the remote work model has allowed them to hire talent that fits their company culture, even if that means that their team is distributed in six different countries.

Is there a difference between leading a team remotely or in person? Our guest Louise Puddifoot, Founder & Director of Willow & Puddifoot, shares her experience managing remote teams. In this episode, Louise Puddifoot, a self-defined people developer, takes us through the differences between being a remote team manager and a local team manager, as well as the difficulties that managing remote or hybrid teams represent. Luis and Louise share some insights on how to choose ideal team managers. Listen to Louise share advice on how to train and motivate your remote employees, as well as some tips to create a collaborative environment regardless of your location.

Think about taking your company remote? Stefania Chiorboli shares some insights to help your company transition to a remote or hybrid environment without losing part of your culture. Stefania is the founder at The Hoxby Collective, a consulting business helping people and companies build and manage remote teams. In this podcast episode, Luis and Stefania talk about how remote work can make the world a better place, not only because it's materially and financially appealing but also because it opens a space for a more diverse workforce, and it allows every remote worker to have the work-life balance that they choose in a way that is meaningful for them and allows them to give their best without being tied to an office.

Kimberly Harden is the Founder and CEO of Harden Consulting Group and an Instructor at Seattle University. She's taught Communication Studies at the Seattle Central College, the Highline College, and the Regis University College for Professional Studies. She founded and directed JAGWILL, a company to help people improve their communication skills. She also advocates for diversity in educational institutions.

Tom Libelt is the Co-Founder of We Create Online Courses, the Founder of WeMarketOnlineCourses.com and CEO of Libelty SEO. In this episode, our guest Tom Libelt shares his experience creating systems that have allowed him to lead several enterprises simultaneously. Tom and Luis talk about the pros of recruiting full-time remote employees vs hiring digital nomad employees. For Tom, who is more a seasonal traveler, the key to leading so many projects at the same time is getting a manager who supervises his staff, which he likes to keep tight placing quality over quantity.

Clodagh Higgins is an Agency Coach and Consultant at the Growit Group, she's a Performance Coach at Valor Performance, author of the book "A Happy and Healthy Digital Agency". She's also a Powerlifting World Record Holder and host of her own podcast "Agency Life." After traveling and working in big cities, she returned to her hometown in the west coast of Ireland and has been coaching marketing agencies remotely from the comfort of her cottage for about the past couple of years. Clodagh leads a team of three remote colleagues and is a very organized multitasker. Lifting weights or walking at the beach is something you might find her doing after handling coaching sessions with clients from all around the world.  In this episode, Clodagh takes us through a glance of her book "A Happy and Healthy Digital Agency" and her self-developed methodology to manage digital marketing agencies, which allows her to successfully coach marketing entrepreneurs. Learn how optimizing your time with proper scheduling and the righ

In this episode, Luis talks to Mentor  Coach Steve Hamilton, CEO & Founder of the 18th Camel. Steve shares some of his key points to create an appropriate climate when you meet someone online for the first time and what you can do to bond effectively. He believes some of the key aspects to bonding with someone come from creating trust and empathy. They also share some strategies to be more productive when working from home, such as keeping a focus and being mindful of how you spend your time.

Ken Weary balances his life between being the VP of Operations at Hotjar (a product that reveals the online behavior and voice of a website’s users) and being a father and husband in a digital nomad family. Six years ago, he took a sabbatical which really changed his perspective about how we wanted to live his life and decided to start working remotely, house sitting for people around the world. Currently, he is house sitting and working out of Scotland, and while he tackles the tasks of a VPO, his wife "world-schools" their kids.

Todd Werth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Infinite Red, a remote design and creative studio creating beautiful and functional mobile apps and websites. Todd has been creating software for 20 years and has founded three companies. He still codes and designs but not as often as he'd like. In this podcast episode, Todd shares his experience leading a remote company and explains how big decisions are made when working remotely. He believes remote has nothing to do with how you work or when you work, it's only about where you're located.

We've all heard about the numerous benefits of company retreats. But, how can your company make the most of it? Elisa Rueda, host and founder of The CoWork Experience shares some insights and advice for leaders looking to take their team on a retreat. There's a difference between a cowork experience retreat and a cowork experience vacation. When you take a large group out the goal is to celebrate, but a retreat is more focused on development, growth and nurturing the skills of the team members. Before going on a retreat, Elisa shares it's important to identify the problem you're looking to solve so your time is focused on finding a solution to that specific problem. Don't just send your employees away to have a good time as you'll probably come back the same way. What makes a good company retreat? How do people break the ice when they meet and get to know each other for the first time? Listen to this podcast episode and find out.

A big part of building a successful remote team relies on effective leadership management. In this episode, Luis talks to Sabina Nawaz about one of the many benefits of working remotely. She mentions how managing a remote team really broadens your perspective and helps you become a more comprehensive leader. Having a diverse team helps you have a global point of view in your virtual office. Sabina shares leadership tips for CEOs looking to boost their business. Some of them include having active 1-on-1 sessions with employees and showcasing their achievements properly.

Angelique believes your company's culture should really reflect your purpose and values but how do you establish and implement that? Writing down where you want to be or where you are right now, might be a good place to start. This could help you have a clear vision of your company. There are different ways to build your company's culture but is always important to remember that as a founder, you have the obligation to build something that makes you happy. There will be times where you'll have to make decisions or sacrifices to follow your culture; letting go of clients might be one of them, if they don't follow your vision or if their values are not aligned to yours. Listen to learn how you can implement a good working environment whether you're working in an office or with a remote team.

3dar is a creative hybrid team, their core people are on-site but they also work with artists from Brazil, Chile and other parts of South America. As part of their vision, the team at 3dar knew from the beginning that they wanted to work with creative people in Latin America but offer their services in Europe and the US. In this podcast episode, German shares how working remotely with artists has naturally pushed them to be more structured as a company and almost perfect the art of creating briefs so that all requests are met.

In this podcast episode, Bhagyashree shares how she's able to successfully manage a hybrid team across different time zones and shares the basics of equality in remote hiring practices. One step her company decided to implement was to pay their remote employees equally, regardless of their country of residence. Whether they're in India, Hawai or Portugal, their employees' salary is calculated on the base San Francisco salary for that position. The reason? Everyone is doing quality work and putting the extra effort. She advises all remote companies to hire based on skills, experience and expertise; try to avoid stereotypes when looking to fill a specific role.

There are a bunch of reasons why managers are reluctant to work remotely and June Bolneo surely knows about them. In this chapter, we go deep into learning the ins and outs of remote work and how your company can (or should) make the leap.  She's found that most of the problems that arise when working remotely are very psychological and rely around social barriers. So, what can we do about it? Listen to this podcast and find out.

A lot of people talk about communication being a challenging factor in successfully running a remote team, but Matteo Grassi explains how one of the main issues they've encountered as a remote company is managing projects. In this podcast episode, he shares how they have built their processes, improved them and made sure the whole company is following them. They've implemented a goal-oriented strategy at Eli Z Group that focuses on short and long term goals rather than day-to-day activities. Wanna know how this has helped the business? Have a listen. 

Elise Keith is the Founder & CEO at Lucid Meetings, an app that makes it easy for teams to run successful meeting every day. Their software embeds basic best practices and automates the administrative work involved in scaling a great meeting habit. She's also an author of the book Where the Action is: The Meetings That Make or Break your Organization.  In this episode, Elise shares what she's found are the most common habits of successful remote teams and the key to make a project go well. She's found that when all the members in a team have clarity of decisions, they know who's involved in what and how they are involved, it's difficult to not see a project succeed.

Ingrid Odegaard is the Co-founder & CPTO (formerly CEO) of Appear.in, a tool to bring your team and clients together with flexible video meetings so you can have a more productive remote team collaboration. In this episode, we talk about the benefits of remote teams and the importance of trust and work-life balance to achieve a good company's culture.  Ingrid explains how transitioning to a fully remote team has helped them develop more empathy for their users as now they understand better what problems they're facing and can offer better solutions to keep improving their product. 

Sharon Koifman believes every company, from the biggest enterprise to the newly-launched garage startup, should have access to the world’s top talent. That’s why he used over 10 years of experience in tech industry recruitment & HR to create DistantJob.  This episode is all about explaining how having a Virtual Assistant impacted Sharon’s work and life, allowing him to get more things done while achieving better work-life balance. He might not be living the 4-hour workweek dream, but he’s never been happier - and he’s bullish about taking on any perceived or real challenges about having a person from another country take care of your schedule and accounts. Luís puts him to the test - how did he fare? You decide!

Shauna Moran is the Founder at Operate Remote, a consulting firm where she helps individuals and organizations overcome the challenges when it comes to remote working. Her remote journey started about 6 years ago when she started working remotely for Shopify, an e-commerce platform for online stores. She got so passionate about remote working and decided to go back to school to get her Ph.D in Innovation Management where she focused on understanding what actually allowed remote teams to be successful. In this episode, Shauna shares her experience managing remote teams and gives some tips on how to do it effectively, according to research.