How Patrick Doyle Brown Built Global Teams to Scale Businesses While Maintaining High Quality

[00:00:00] Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, Hector. It's a pleasure to be on. Excited to have a conversation.

[00:00:47] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[00:01:16] Speaker 3: Sure, and I would love to talk shop with. You one time, uh, on that. 'cause, uh, you need a friend that can honestly tell you sometimes your ideas are stupid. Don't do it. Like we, we, I know I need a friend like that in therapy sometimes that don't do that. You haven't thought it through, so anytime. But so I first started off in it, uh, building out infrastructure.

[00:01:38] Speaker 3: So when you're building a business and you're trying to create systems. A guy like me would actually architect the data and it, and how all the machines and processes talk to each other, and I was doing really well with projects in the United States and, um, I had built a team to take care of all the ads, moves and changes in Tempe, Arizona, and over time.

[00:02:02] Speaker 3: What would happen is, uh, the payroll, uh, costs would increase and I would keep losing people due to, you know, the smaller businesses have a problem where you find talent, you build talent, and then bigger companies with bigger checkbooks take them away. So you just get into the cycle where you're building, you become a farm team for large companies.

[00:02:26] Speaker 3: So what I started to do is I started to build, um, you know, from the Navy connections I had while I was in the service. Um, they introduced me to some people in Manila, Philippines, where I then built and entrenched in my own customers. Uh, I, I built my own teams out there and it became, uh, a lot more stable because the, the issue with American labor right now isn't.

[00:02:52] Speaker 3: Affordability as much people say it is, it's the fact that people really need to increase the wages, the quality of life fast. And unfortunately in businesses, 90% of what you're doing is really repetitive. Um, you know, tasks that are very tier one and at, at the end of the day, you have to create and scale your payroll to match that model and.

[00:03:19] Speaker 3: Uh, what I would did, what I did is I, I did all the, the level one work in the Philippines creative strategic work here in the United States, and magically my margins got back. But it wasn't so much the payroll savings. It's the fact that when you invest in people and you build people, the longer they stay, the greater your human capital return is.

[00:03:43] Speaker 3: And. When people stay in a job for two or three years and they just know what to do. That is so valuable to a founder because you don't have to retrain anybody,

[00:03:52] Speaker 4: you don't

[00:03:53] Speaker 3: have to teach anybody. It is just so painful for someone you've invested years in to then pull up stakes and move somewhere. And, um, to create a system that does both, is what I did.

[00:04:07] Speaker 3: We became successful and a lot of my clients I supported in it. They asked me to help build teams in the Philippines too, because they didn't know how to do it. I had gone there and figured it out with friends, and that's how I got into this business, and it's been great.

[00:04:42] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[00:05:23] Speaker 3: I'd like to start off by saying America has an amazing workforce that is very creative and creates such incredibly technological advances in a lot of different things, but the concept that people that are on the other side of the ocean are continents, are less smart than them, or not as capable, is completely false.

[00:05:47] Speaker 3: So we, I get the idea a lot of times the. The misconception that the quality of work in the Philippines and Mexico is not at the same level as America. And what you have to understand is America is a very individualistic and a very rugged society. We're tough. We can take, there's, there's, there's something about the American business culture that is very entrepreneurial and willing to take risks.

[00:06:17] Speaker 3: The Asian. Market is more collective. They do what's best for a large group of people. Mexico's somewhere in the middle. So you can have a creative, very amazing risk and design team in the United States, but they're not the same people that are going to do repetitive tasks over and over to such a high level of degree.

[00:06:40] Speaker 3: Um, it's just two different workforces. But if you put the workforces together, you can create amazing things. We could not create Apple iPhones all in America because of this concept accounting. And it goes all across industries. So the misconception that once the work leaves these shores is going to be of less quality is, has, should be by now.

[00:07:04] Speaker 3: Um, you know, removed, but it's still there. And so I have to often tell people. Um, that the services I provide just creates a system of compliance and high level of execution that is repeatable and scalable.

[00:08:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, all day long, so you'll never, an American can sell anything. We sell everything under the roof. We do it with a smile on our face all day, every day. But when's the last time you saw somebody on Japan, uh, someone of Asian descent on a corner trying to get you, trying to sell you a car? It's just so, it's different traits, different processes, and, you know, we see American, um, uh, forward the ability for Americans to start a conversation, build rapport.

[00:08:47] Speaker 3: Um, and to create that initial relationship is better than any place in the world. Um, in Eastern Europe. That's where the best web development happens. Part of it in India too, um, a lot of really amazing beautiful design work is done in Europe. Um, you know, European fashion and, um, you know, web, uh, web, uh, overall, uh.

[00:09:13] Speaker 3: Design in Asia, really repetitive, um, accounting type work, customer service work, tech support work, and in Latin America, very good hospitality, very warm, very full of life, very vibrant. And so for whatever product you're building and making, getting international talent that has, um, a flavor of what you need for your customer experience is key for.

[00:09:43] Speaker 3: Because there's so much amazing international talent, and unfortunately, uh, for those countries, the business opportunities in America are un unprecedented. You know, you can't even match it. So, uh, America has all the business opportunities and tapping into that international talent pool is not as hard as you think, but you do need a guide because there's some, you know, there's some really, um, you know, rules you wanna follow.

[00:11:06] Speaker 3: And that's where I get into a lot of very uncomfortable conversations because if I pay a Filipino $1,500 a month, their quality of life is higher than somebody in San Francisco getting paid $7,000 a month. So I try not to compare the different markets and the rates required for a certain standard of living.

[00:11:29] Speaker 3: I pride myself on being able to support a company who needs to have margins above a certain percentage for their investors, and then the agents and the employees that we hire that live a higher quality of life once they come under our employment. That's what I, and then the market's gonna take care of itself.

[00:11:49] Speaker 3: We have AI personnel. In the Philippines, their, um, salaries, I've had to double and triple in some cases just in the last six months because the global, um, global, uh, pool of AI talent does not recognize borders. This person can't earn $4,000 as long as they deliver the implementation of an AI workflow from wherever he is at in his pajamas.

[00:12:18] Speaker 3: They don't care. Um. So I take a lot of pride when I get back to the, I'm in the Philippines every three months. People are buying houses. They're buying cars. Their quality of life is increasing. My, my client's, um, business is stabilized and their margins are healthy. And that is, for me, that's all I can do.

[00:12:40] Speaker 3: I don't, I, I don't really control cost, uh, you know, markets and what the demands are for living somewhere. I, that's a lot, another discussion one day, but that's the, uh, the trifecta. Is it good for the client? Is it good for the agent, and does Unity benefit?

[00:13:02] Speaker 4: Sure.

[00:13:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, so most, uh, founders and, and people running startups, they will run into a bottleneck with their people that either on the floor with their, um, you know, frontline people or other spots. Usually people will try to add personnel in their own area. The what I call the home field advantage. People in your area, people in your city that could come in office with you, they're always gonna be the best resource for you, even if it comes at a cost higher, because when you can capture the essence of what needs to be done in a room physically next to you and build that person, money's not really that big of an issue.

[00:14:16] Speaker 3: But when you're scaling a, let's say you have a SaaS product and now you need customer service ticket done at a certain level, then, um, then usually a, uh, when you contact a firm like ours. We will look at the job, uh, descriptions, and we will then propose to put together a workflow and a personnel that will, um, fulfill that workflow.

[00:14:39] Speaker 3: And usually it costs per hour, nine, $10 an hour in most cases in the Philippines. Um, sometimes those workflows are not a good fit for the Philippines. For example, if it's sales or relationship building or Mexico. And really at the end of the day, where's the bottleneck happening? Um, a lot of founders, they need, they, they really need a good, um, person to balance ideas off to see where's the bottleneck?

[00:15:08] Speaker 3: Does it make sense to automate it? Does it make sense to have people? And we always, we always see which one makes sense. So it's just, you just have the conversation first.

[00:15:38] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[00:15:43] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[00:15:55] Speaker 4: Sure.

[00:16:07] Speaker 3: So, um, one, one of the. I would say probably one thing I was surprised and, and free up is, is where a lot of people start off is having somebody manage your social media accounts. Why are, why is a founder or a starter in social media all day long, every day? What are you learning from it? Having somebody go and, and represent you and, and your, so you gotta remember the younger generations, the twenties, thirties, they're better at social media than you're.

[00:16:39] Speaker 3: They're better at, uh, communicating with emojis and they know the slang better

[00:16:44] Speaker 4: and

[00:16:44] Speaker 3: probably in three or four different languages. So a lot of times people will outsource, managing social media, tagging photos, applying to emails, and monitoring those. So the two to three hours that they did spend on these platforms, they're not distracted because all of a sudden they're designed to grab your attention and then all of a sudden they're doom scrolling for another hour.

[00:17:09] Speaker 3: Um, so it's, it's a matter of where is your time better focused? Should you be spending it on social media? Should you be answering emails? Should you be spending that extra hours, you know, researching your competitors price plans. So what we see with a lot of e-commerce companies is they will outsource a resource to us.

[00:17:30] Speaker 3: Just to do market research. This is the product I'm selling. Go to my 50 competitors and tell me what their prices are and so I can create, and then they'll program AI to then give them daily price changes and evaluations, and then they'll create a dashboard. So from a simple agent, just managing and looking at prices of your competitors, you now can create your own little algorithm.

[00:17:56] Speaker 3: What the market's doing and changing on all.

[00:18:33] Speaker 4: Yeah,

[00:18:44] Speaker 3: so there's one thing that almost all of them forget to do. It's called a customer journey map. So a lot of times people spend a, um, hours and hours researching where, where do we wanna be? Do we wanna be SE, wanna do Google ads, do we wanna do marketing? So, uh, what we always see very good founders do, especially in incubators, is they start with the customer journey map where they pretend they're the customer and they're looking for to buy a product.

[00:19:19] Speaker 3: And they, they basically write down all the places that their product would be if they were to go looking for a product or service in that area. Um, and then you just create this pinpoint that if. If, uh, you just pretend you're a CFO, you just pretend you're a CEO. You pretend you're these different roles and you have this problem, and how would they, uh, you know, conclude to buy your, your product and service.

[00:19:46] Speaker 3: So it'll tell you. Then that customer journey map will tell you, do you need to be in retail stores? Do you need, do you need a physical advertising? And then that's where you should focus, uh, where to position yourself in the acquisition strategy. If you don't have an acquisition plan on getting customers, then what are you doing?

[00:20:09] Speaker 3: Um, the, you can have the, and, and I use McDonald's all the time. As an example. McDonald's marketing is so good and so strong that most of America will eat terrible food just because the marketing is so good. Um, I am, I am a victim of that all the time, uh, because it's convenient. Because their marketing is so good, you're, you are always reminded that it's right around the corner.

[00:20:38] Speaker 3: 'cause they know their customer. Find out where you need to place yourself first. Um, and, uh, first and second because you can have the greatest product or service, uh, in the world. But if it's not placed correctly, and if you don't have a good strategy for people to find you, then it's all for nothing.

[00:20:58] Speaker 3: You'll run out of time or money and you can't run out of one.

[00:21:44] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:01] Speaker 3: Verify. So we have automated systems behind people, but um. Automated systems, uh, really at the end of the day, they break because all you need is one firmware update, one SKU that needs to be updated. And now you have to reset the entire automation process. Um, and it only takes one terrible review on, um, social media or Yelp to ruin hundreds of reviews that were doing good.

[00:22:30] Speaker 3: Nobody remembers what you did well. They always remember what you, what you suck at. So you really have to be on top of that customer experience because it's just too easy to ruin a brand compared to the years it takes to, to build it.

[00:22:55] Speaker 4: Yes.

[00:23:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's, there's just a lot of really great talent worldwide that when you, I always tell people though, eat your own dog food first. So if you're launching a customer service desk. You really should be the one taking the first hundred calls. If you delegate that task before you do it yourself as a founder, then you're setting the next person up for failure.

[00:24:07] Speaker 3: Um, simply because, uh, number one, people will respect you more if you take those calls yourself. But these are your customers. They are, they're gonna give you the best data on the field than ever. And then once you have an idea of the temperature, then you could put the right person. That can deal with those, um, you know, uh, you know, sessions, calls, emails, texts, whatever it is for you.

[00:24:34] Speaker 3: And I see lots of founders that don't want to do, quote unquote, that front level or frontline work. Um, and it's, uh, and unfortunately, um, I don't see many of them succeed. And, uh, the one thing about Jeff Bezos that I have a lot of respect for. Is he will stock shelves at the early days of, of Amazon, he would demand everybody in leadership would man a warehouse including himself.

[00:25:14] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:20] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[00:25:28] Speaker 4: Uh,

[00:25:42] Speaker 3: yeah, I, I still have my original cold calling scripts memorized in my head. Um. So, but later on, now that I'm at the executive level, uh, me calling another CEO to solve a problem is not an issue. I, I mean, after you get rejected so many times, what's the level of conflict about resolving an invoice? No big deal.

[00:26:16] Speaker 4: Uh.

[00:26:22] Speaker 4: Yes.

[00:26:28] Speaker 3: Well, this, this actually goes into, um, uh, one of the things that I, uh, in America labor force that we have a problem competing with is apps. So you have a 25 se, 27-year-old, uh, labor force that has work available to 'em on demand. How do you compete against that? So a person can just deliver food for $20 an hour when they want, how they want.

[00:26:54] Speaker 3: How do I get mid 20 year olds, early 30 year olds to actually commit to an office job? And that's why a lot of people outsource to us because that demographic is used to being able to work when they want, how they want, and they don't wanna commit to anything. Unfortunately in our business, we need somebody that can commit to a schedule and learning something and we, I really hope that we figure that out.

[00:27:36] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.

[00:27:49] Speaker 3: I'm so easily able to schedule. Just go to my website, contact and you'll see my calendar right there. Um, you know, I have 700 employees, but you can still schedule directly with me anytime you want.

[00:28:15] Speaker 3: Do not spend beyond your means. Stay within your lane. Don't chase after shiny objects and always, always be selling without revenue coming in. You're, it's just a matter of time.

[00:28:42] Speaker: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale Business Podcast. My name is Hector Sanya Esteban, and I am your host. Our special guest today is Mr. Patrick Doyle Brown, and he's someone who has helped, uh, businesses for years really scale through developing better systems and, uh, and also helps people to be able to, to run and drive those systems as well.

[00:29:05] Speaker: So, Patrick, uh, welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out.

[00:29:13] Speaker: I am always excited to talk with people You, like you, because I had a, a call with a friend earlier today where I was just basically, uh, you know, sort of a business, the one of those business therapy talks where I sort of, I sort of vomited where, where I, you know, was and um, really it's just because I think that there's a, such a need for an integrator role, right.

[00:29:33] Speaker: And I'm the. You know, I'm the, I'm the creative, I'm the, the loony, you know, that's got all the ideas. And, uh, so much of my growth has been finding and surrounding myself with people who I'd imagine like you, who are, are, you know, capable of building and running the systems that actually drive, you know, things on a day-to-day basis.

[00:29:50] Speaker: So tell me how you got into this world and some of, what are the, the few stops along the way were, and, and a little bit about what you do with your clients now.

[00:33:07] Speaker: Yeah. And I imagine that it's so much, uh, there's so much opportunity. I was, I was reflecting this morning on like, you know how I had a bunch of crypto back in, you know, 2012 and uh, I don't know, you know, just was like, I basically missed the boat, right? So I was like, you know, and I was reflecting on like, okay, you know, let me just let that sail and what's the next one?

[00:33:29] Speaker: And I'd imagine that the next sort of, if there is an opportunity that is close to something like that, it's. It's sort of AI and leveraging that, but we'll get to that later. What I'm curious is when you, when you. Talk to business owners about sort of what you're talking about and, and sort of getting them onto your side.

[00:33:47] Speaker: What misconceptions or what sort of false beliefs do they have about what you're doing and, and about sort of what creating these systems, um, you know, all, all, all the pieces together, like what don't they understand about it?

[00:36:05] Speaker: Yeah, I have a mentor who is a, a big proponent of, you know, international talent and, uh, what he also said, which I think makes a lot of sense and, and perhaps could add, I'd love to get your take on it, is that. You mentioned, you know, America being rugged and, and, and that certain countries or certain areas, you know, certain in communities exhibit and, and index higher on certain traits.

[00:36:31] Speaker: Right. And so, you know, he found that certain areas were better at a certain skillset and other areas, uh, excelled at other things. Is that something that you. Like, what are, what are your thoughts on, on saying, you know, going to one area to get, you know, web development and going to another area to get creative work?

[00:36:51] Speaker: Like, is that something, uh, you know, what, what are your thoughts?

[00:38:56] Speaker: I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day that it was something to the effect of, you know, I don't pay my. People based on what they're paid, like ba based on what they should make in their area or based on, you know, the, the other, uh, country's sort of difference in, in currency. Right. Um, and, and I think they said it as sort of a point of pride, which I, I totally respect and, and also.

[00:39:30] Speaker: Well, is there an opportunity there to find really high talent, um, to pay what, what to, to an American would not be a livable wage, but to somebody else, you know, to in another country, um, is perhaps, you know, a great opportunity for them.

[00:41:43] Speaker: Well, I appreciate you taking the hardball questions here. This is, uh. The reason is I think if once someone can get past those, then, then the floodgates open up right then, then the opportunity, because now there's so much, um. They have so much leverage now that I think they didn't realize what, what was in front of them.

[00:42:02] Speaker: So once, once they've realized, okay, um, we're, we're gonna sort of take this path and this is gonna be the way that we go, what's the order of operations or what is the steps? Or is there a, there, are there pillars? Like how do you look at, you know, sort of the landscape of what they're gonna be, uh, what they should be thinking about.

[00:44:02] Speaker: Yeah. One of the biggest things that I've seen. Hold business owners back is their ability to create use cases. Right? A lot of times they can't wrap their head around what's possible now. And I think, you know, things have moved so quickly that, you know, they're just trying to figure out, you know, how to create a recipe in Chad, GPT, you know?

[00:44:28] Speaker: And uh, um. So what are some of the cool things that you see businesses doing that are, um, you know, maybe to make this question a little harder, that are, um, it might, might surprise people with how either simple or inexpensive they are to, to automate and, and sort of outsource.

[00:46:47] Speaker: Are there any things that, um, can help someone if they're going to get going down this road? You know that when, when we work with, uh, you know, we have a podcast production company and so, you know, it's amazing when. People come to, you know, they come to us and they've got their branding and they've got their headshots and they've got sort of these things already dialed in because then it makes it easy to just pick those up.

[00:47:10] Speaker: And now we can go execute and we can run with it and, you know, everything's downhill from there. Uh, are there things that people need to get in line or get in order to, you know, sort of get their house in order, if you will, to, uh, make this whole thing go easier?

[00:49:46] Speaker: Yeah, what's. Really, um, seems to be the opportunity for a lot of business owners is to leverage the, you know, to have a new lever on time, whether it's through delegation, uh, outsourcing, or even through automation. I mean, there's, there's, they can really amp up their level of impact if they're willing to, to create these systems.

[00:50:09] Speaker: And then. What is also an important piece for I think people, for people to remember is that you still need a human to kind of drive them like these as, as great as AI is, and as powerful as AI is, there's sometimes where I go, you are so smart. And then in the next moment I'm like, you are so dumb, you know?

[00:50:28] Speaker: And I'm talking to the same thing. So. What, um, well, I'll, I'll just leave it there. Like, it seems like that's sort of the one two punch that you've assembled is, uh, is the ability for them to have these systems and then have people behind them that are really, you know, driving them.

[00:51:28] Speaker: Yeah, and, and to, as I'm sort of reflecting on my experience with automations, it's like, it's one of those things where you, like, you set it up and it's like, all right, don't touch it. You know, like, hopefully nothing goes wrong, you know, hopefully there is this, this, this, everything stays perfect in the moment.

[00:51:43] Speaker: Uh, you know, you, you sort of. Uh, veer away from, from adjustments and it, and it sort of prevents you or, or sort of puts constraints on there. And so I, I also, I found that it's helpful for people to have an integrator in doing this. That even if you, as much as I really enjoy nerding out on some of these things, I get about an hour into it and I back up and I go, there's someone who's way better than me at this way smarter than me and is gonna do it way faster.

[00:52:13] Speaker: Um, and. And again, that's leveraging other people's talents to be able to do it, I think is huge. So I would encourage business owners not to feel like they have to take this all on on their own.

[00:53:19] Speaker 2: Um.

[00:53:49] Speaker: Yeah, I think it's helpful for people to, to do it. And I always tell myself something, one of my early sales mentors told me, and it was a good thing to like get you through those, those tough sales, you know, just whether we were doing calls or recruiting activities. And he's just like, we're doing it now so we don't ever have to do it again.

[00:54:07] Speaker: And I'm like, all right. You know? But, but for me, for me, that is. Doing it and then documenting it, right. That was, that was sort of the missing link. And so when you, when you do that and you document it, now you're able to have someone, you know, take it and, and run it the way that it's supposed to run. Um,

[00:54:29] Speaker: yeah.

[00:54:51] Speaker: Yeah, it was never the calls that bothered me. I could get through the calls. It was, we had to pass out flyers in the, in the sun in the summer. And I was just, you know, I was a 17-year-old kid who was just, would rather be at the beach with, you know, you know, doing stupid stuff. Um, this has been a fun conversation.

[00:55:12] Speaker: Go ahead.

[00:56:10] Speaker: I think there's a huge opportunity for people. Patrick, uh, two questions as we sort of round our way outta here. Um, the first is, is if people wanted to get more connected with you, if they've got questions they wanna connect with you, where and how's the best place to do that?

[00:56:46] Speaker: Amazing. We'll link all that up in the chat there for you. And my last question for you is, in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:57:23] Speaker: And we'll cut.