The ROI of Managing Remote Teams
The global workforce is expanding, and while many corporations are mandating back-to-the-office policies, us founders running online companies are at a huge advantage:
In a survey conducted by Slack amongst 9,000 workers, a mere 12% preferred working in an office setting.
This re-enforces a significant preference among employees for remote or hybrid work, with many experiencing lower stress levels and increased productivity when working remotely (In fact, studies show organizations with well-structured remote teams experience 25% higher productivity and lower operational costs by up to 30%).
Managing a global workforce effectively, though, requires strong leadership, the right systems, and strategic hiring – something most of us put off as it never feels like the most urgent priority in the business amongst the thousands of other fires we’re constantly putting out.
That is, until we realize that the business can not sustain growth without us.
The good news?
Master managing a remote team, and you can attract, retain and grow A-players across the globe to sell, market and serve for you – allowing you to build a truly freedom-based business that gives you time, flexibility, and more capacity.
In the process of building a high-performing, self-led team of your own? Download a copy of “Bigger Than You: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building an Unstoppable Team“.
The Benefits and Challenges of Hiring Remote Teams
- There are a ton of advantages to remote team management, including:
- Access to top-tier talent worldwide
- Cost-effective labor markets
- Increased diversity
- Increased capacity to serve customers and drive growth, with teams working across multiple time zones
However, managing remote teams effectively also comes with challenges of its own:
- Communication breakdowns, especially when communicating across multiple channels – such as slack, emails, and text threads
- Legal and compliance risks
- Cultural differences in work style
- Lack of real-time supervision
You as the business owner can overcome these challenges by developing strong virtual team leadership skills and prioritizing how you hire, onboard, coach, train, manage and mentor.
These are all skills we work with business leaders on inside our Legacy Leaders Collective, our business leadership development program for 7-figure founders.
Structuring a Global Team for Success
The way you structure your team impacts efficiency and results. Some common global workforce solutions include:
- Follow-the-sun model: Teams in different time zones hand off work to ensure round-the-clock productivity.
- Regional hubs: Hiring talent in strategic locations to manage specific markets.
- Fully-distributed teams: All employees work remotely without a central office.
Choosing the right structure depends on your industry, goals, leadership style and business model.
Your First Key Hire
We often get the question, “what is the ideal order of roles I need to hire, and who do I need to hire to take my business to the next level?
When starting your entrepreneurial journey, your primary focus should be on profit-producing activities: this includes customer acquisition, brand-building, and sales. However, these tasks quickly become overwhelming as the business grows. This is where your first hire comes in.
Typically, the first person to hire will be a contractor to assist with administrative and operational tasks, such as scheduling, email management, and social media coordination. Hiring a contractor, rather than a full-time employee, offers flexibility, especially when you’re still clarifying the needs of your business. Contractors, often specialized in their field, can hit the ground running, but keep in mind that they will have multiple clients and charge hourly, so the cost may add up over time.
While contractors offer immediate expertise, their external focus means they are not as fully invested in your business as a full-time employee would be.
In the early stages, hire someone part-time to focus on tasks like content creation and repurposing, client scheduling, and administrative duties. By offloading these tasks, you’ll free up time to focus on what truly drives revenue: sales and marketing. This enables you to reinvest your time in profit-producing activities, which will help accelerate your business growth.
The key is to hire as early as possible. Even a small commitment, like one hour a week with a virtual assistant (VA), can allow you to focus on higher-value work and drive growth. Keep your hiring process flexible, and assess the impact of each hire to ensure your resources are used efficiently.
Advanced hiring strategy
As an online service-based business, there are 4 core hires you ultimately need to make to take your business from $1M to $5M and beyond – and while there are many team members you will bring into your organization, there are a few critical growth drivers:
#1: Revenue-generation role: this is essentially a salesperson, whether they focus on inside sales, outside sales or social selling.
#2: Marketing role: this person’s entire focus is on building the brand and generating leads, so that your sales team has a full pipeline of leads to nurture and close.
#3: Program manager or client-facing role: this person is responsible for dialed-in service delivery to ensure your customers are getting results that lead to retention, renewals, and referrals.
#4: Finance role: this isn’t some outsourced bookkeeper or CP – it’s someone who is focused on managing and communicating critical financial information on daily basis, that allows you to make smart business decisions and investments for strategic growth.
Communication Frameworks for Remote Teams
Clear communication is a must, especially in fully-remote team environments, to ensure things don’t get lost in translation.
Managing remote teams effectively
A few things to have in place to make the most of your virtual employer/employee relationships:
- Establish a cadence for weekly one-on-ones with direct reports (team leaders should have these set with their direct reports as well).
One-on-ones are the time to discuss career progression, performance, key initiatives, issues and concerns, and coach through key areas of improvement. It’s NOT the time to discuss transactional to-dos, low priorities not central to overarching goals, or generic questions.
Inside our free Leadership Vault, you can find a full breakdown on how to structure effective employee one-on-ones to inspire productivity and high performance.
- Weekly/monthly full-team calls: this is the time for high-level vision casting and anchoring your team back to the vision, mission, and “why” behind the work they’re doing.
This is your time to maintain a leadership presence virtually, by setting the stage and reminding them of the impact they’re making, the lives they’re changing, and how they can change their own lives in the process.
- Established communication channels: commit to one mode of communication to streamline tasks, asks, questions, and status updates.
Communication becomes increasingly difficult when you’re sifting through multiple channels to try to find or reference information.
- Weekly leadership meetings: meet with your core leadership teams to discuss strategic priorities and make sure leaders are aligned on key initiatives
When it comes to building trust without face-to-face interaction, it’s important to remember that no one wants to be bad at their job.
As a leader, you can support your team to perform at their best by setting expectations from the get-go, and helping them:
- Block their calendar according to the most important deliverables at hand
- Understand how their role impacts the company, and what incentives they have at their disposal when they meet and exceed KPIs
- Offer consistent coaching, training and feedback as you onboard and develop them
Intentional team-building tips to boost morale and improve culture:
Despite managing a fully remote team, there are still plenty of ways to boost morale and establish a strong culture.
Consider planning in-person get-togethers focused on relationship-building and connection amongst employees, and encourage team members to meet and connect with their nearby colleagues for coffee, lunch, or co-working days.
If those things aren’t possible, consider group activities such as vision board creation,
Tech-Stack Musts for Global Workforce Management
Running a high-functioning remote team requires the right tech stack. Some of our favorites include:
- Project management: Asana, Clickup, Trello
- Communication: Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams
- CRM: GoHighLevel or Hubspot allows teams to manage tasks, reporting, and database management
- HR & payroll: Our preference: Justworks (other options include Deel, Remote, or Gusto)
Legal Considerations by Region
Before expanding globally, ensure compliance with local labor laws. Key considerations include:
- Europe: Strict GDPR data protection laws.
- Asia: Unique contract and termination policies.
- Latin America: Complex tax and employment classification rules.
Setting up a compliant structure from the start avoids legal headaches later (we can’t give legal advice, so we recommend seeking expert advice when it comes to legalities)
Remote Talent Identification and Development
When it comes to recruiting and interviewing virtual candidates, it’s important to know what to look out for and what red flags to avoid. These red flags don’t require an in-person meeting to catch, so look out for candidates who:
- Have end goals not aligned with a career path you can provide
- Cite reasons for leaving that won’t be resolved through working for you
- Held a job for a period of years and did not progressively take on more responsibilities, get promoted consistently, or make more money.
- Are worried about base salary versus total compensation opportunity (especially in a sales/commission role)
- Don’t want to be “micro-managed” (this is typically code for not wanting to be held accountable)
- Can’t follow directions in the application process or in a test/demo
- Didn’t research your company
On the flip side, it’s not always years of experience or accolades that make a person qualified. In fact, some of our best tenured employees started out as interns with little to no experience.
Many times, the intangibles – mindset, attitude, and drive – will take an employee further, faster than having the right qualifications, certificates or experience on paper.
Consider the person’s goals, vision, and willingness to learn and grow with your company – and don’t let experience or seniority be a determining factor when bringing someone into your organization.
The Future of Remote Leadership
Leading a remote team isn’t just about making sure the job gets done despite not working together in-person. It’s about maintaining influence, coaching, and developing your leaders just as effectively as you would face-to-face. Virtual mentoring, remote succession planning, and power dynamics in digital workspaces are shaping the future of leadership – especially in the online entrepreneurial space.
If you’re ready to drive more growth, impact, and profits through your remote team: download your FREE copy of “Bigger Than You: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building an Unstoppable Team.
Looking for high-level leadership mastery? Legacy Leaders is the business leadership program designed to elevate your team’s performance, impact and profitability so you can build a scalable, self-led, sellable organization.
