Cliff Perez – Growing your Business with a Pioneer Team

Hi and welcome to another episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast.  This is episode number 92.  We are joined again by Cliff Perez.  He is a seasoned outsourcing professional.  He has been working in outsourcing now over 12 years and we explore tips and tricks for people venturing into outsourcing  So, I hope you enjoy this episode.  If you want any of show notes, please go to outsourceaccelerator.com/92 and Cliff was also in this podcast earlier, he was on episode 51 and 71 so, it’s a there’s also fantastic information there if you want to get more of Cliff.

Derek: Welcome back, Cliff Perez good to have you.

Cliff: Thank you, Derek.

Derek: And today I want to, so we have explored your career in outsourcing, you’ve worked in outsourcing now for nearly 13 years, you were in seminary before that, you were in law school just after that, you have worked for US companies, UK companies, SME’s, captives so you’ve got vast knowledge but also you are fundamentally a entrepreneur yourself and it seems quite common quite prevalent in the Philippines and probably I have to explore this but there’s so many people with so many side gigs, side hustles, so many kind of second jobs I mean how do you get the energy for it but so you work full time now and then you have a business with your wife?

Cliff: Yeah, so we actually started with me doing the business first.  Alright it is a food business that we set it up in our hometown, so right now I think we are already getting into that new trend of having foodparks and the neighborhood, so foodparks are starting to get recognized not in the busy areas but more on you know the neighborhood of different villages or subdivisions.

Derek:  And what made you take that on? You always felt did you want to be in business for yourself or you wanted that as a side gig?

Cliff: Well, when I was working for the BPO, I’ve been doing alot of side businesses right so I was selling a lot of different stuff,

Derek:  What are some examples?

Cliff: Some example that I was selling you know hog casing for you to make what do you call this sausages so I was selling that in the market so I kind of get like around  5-10 grand a month in pesos for selling that

Derek:  What are the other examples?

Cliff:  I’ve been selling toy cars as well for collectibles not just for the kids but also for collectors so I can easily get per piece around like good 500 to 1k.   

Derek: and why are you doing that? Do you think deep down you’re an entrepreneur or you want your own business or is it for side money?  What is your motivation?

Cliff: Yeah I believe that you don’t get rich if you would just be an employee.  I really believe that if you have your own thing, your own company or eventually probably your own business then you can get a long way so I still have that on my mind even if that I’m already working for a company, I know that I have to do something just in case the right timing comes then probably that might boom to a bigger kind of thing then eventually make me rich of course everyone has dreams in life and they want you know those dreams to become a reality so that’s basically what I want to do.

Derek: And  you learn alot from this side hustles and you learn about buying stock and turnover and finding markets finding customers.

Cliff: Exactly, that’s true then the food business we kind of started it because I was researching into different kind of business model and I found out that in food business if you would just get the pricing right, then you can double your money so that’s really critical I actually spent over a month to make sure that the pricing is right compared to the supplies that we get in and then after the first month of opening that food stall we got break even and we are still running the business up until now for like 8 months now and still doing good not great but good and I think once we hit September to the holiday season it would be a lot better than you know the past 3 months.

Derek: So because a lot of our listeners they are entrepreneurs themselves they are business owners and I think it’s always great feel the connection with another entrepreneurs because it’s quite a different way of thinking but I’m always surprise quite how many entrepreneurs are in the Philippines, how many people have this side hustles, how many people have so many other things going on so I see the real selling point for business owners.  Now, what can you tell me about pioneers as well because a lot of SME’s and business owners that aren’t necessarily going down the big bpo or outsourcing service provider route, they are possibly looking for a pioneer to set up a team here.  I know you are familiar with the pioneer concept.  Can you outline what the pioneer concept is?

Cliff: Yeah I think it will all boil down to getting the first recruits to be the best.  Well it will be really hard to do that, cause you have to see them work before you can actually tell if they’re really going to make it or not.  If you’re setting up a business and you’re kind of you know pioneering, let’s say a certain account or a certain business model then as a client or as an entrepreneur you have to be really hands on as well so you have to make sure that everything is going on how you want it to be, well it’s one thing to have you know your pioneer team to set it up their own way but it’s another thing for you to be hands on looking at it if they are going on the right track.    

Derek: So the pioneer is really when you’re setting up an operation here you hire someone that’s really strong that can basically almost co-parent this new operation into place and in your experience like how critical is the training aspect because I think a lot of people can hire teams here and they almost want to ignore the fact that you have to train people, you have to bring them into your culture, you have to show them the processes just as you would people in your own team.  Have you seen that in your positions where the difference in training?

Cliff: Yeah well when I was with the inhouse company I think I got this responsibility to really hire and train people that would be coming in and I always believe that if you hire right people it would be easier for you to let it fly but if you would hire whoever just to make the number then it would be really hard for you because it would be stressful for you to train them and to keep them.  So I think one thing that makes it kind of challenging to set up an in house business compare to having it set up a bigger corporate setting, it’s just that everything’s kind of being put on the shoulder of the hiring manager so it’s not just hiring but also retention so if you would just hire the right people and not do anything to keep them, they can just easily go because a lot of other companies will be offering better rates, better benefits and what not but in terms of training and usually that is kind of good retention program as well and if you provide training and room for growth for their career because everyone eventually looking for that as well like they don’t just join a company because they want to work and get 20,.000 every month like for 5 years I don’t think so because at some point maybe after a year or a couple of years they would be looking for a salary increase and eventually a career growth but yeah as an entrepreneur I have seen this as well and i’ve been talking to a lot of my agents back then like 40% of them would really want to have their own business as well and if you will not give them you know a certain space for them to grow then they would really look for something else because if they know they’re kind of a dead end  in a work

Derek:  And then their intention is gonna go out.

Cliff:  Exactly, that’s true.

Derek: Interesting and then so with your vast experience you also help friends set up teams is that right?

Cliff: Yeah that’s true so there’s like one co-worker, colleague before she is now working for a client, and the client they’re actually in a company right now but they have like 5 agents only and then the client is kind of you know hurting really bad in terms of the fees so now the client is now looking to just go home based so well I think that’s also another model that’s kind of really getting recognized right now here in the Philippines, a lot of clients are going on home based setup

Derek:  Right, the remote teams.

Cliff:  Exactly yes, that’s true.  So they kind of looking at that model but they also want to have a co-working space that they can work on maybe 1 week every 2 months so i just passed them onto someone I know who’s doing seat leasing so they kind of just introduced and then they get to talk to each other then set it up.

Derek: It’s interesting that you said that because there are more co-working spaces and flexible spaces happening in the Philippines now in Manila like it’s really popping up and becoming very very popular because of course the outsourcing BPO’s they do charge a fair whack there’s kind of a you know 6 to 9 hundred dollars seat charge per person of course you get a lot of services with that but it is a certain cost that a lot of clients trying to mitigate that.

Derek:  Okay, I hope you enjoy our chat with Cliff.  This is episode number 92 so if you want any of the show notes or get in touch with Cliff, go to outsourceaccelerator.com/92 and if you want to ask us anything, we will review your questions and we can even cover them in the podcast, just email us at [email protected].