276: Find Latin Talent with Rob Levin

Rob Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of WorkBetterNow, is driven by a mission to help small and medium-sized businesses find top Latin American talent and scale efficiently.

We learn about Rob’s journey from his early passion for entrepreneurship to launching WorkBetterNow, a company that connects SMBs with skilled professionals from Latin America. He explains the hiring process his company has developed—from sourcing top-tier talent to precision matching and seamless onboarding—allowing business owners to delegate more effectively and focus on growth. He also shares insights on the challenges of hiring in today’s market, the importance of building a strong company culture, and why core values should guide every aspect of a business.

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Find Latin Talent with Rob Levin

Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and I welcome Rob Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of WorkBetterNow, an agency that provides high-performing talent from Latin America for small and medium-sized businesses. Rob, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Steve. Great to see you.

Great to see you, and I’m excited to have this conversation. So let’s start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and how do you manifest it in your business?

Since I was a kid, I always loved the world of entrepreneurship and more importantly, entrepreneurs, business owners. My dad, while he didn’t start his business, he did end up owning a business. And I just remember even going with him, as a teenager, to meetings with his accountant and asking his accountant questions about other businesses that they were involved with. And I was reading Inc. Magazine as a kid. And I’ve always thought of business owners as one of the groups of heroes of this country, along with first responders and military members, what they do, what they go through, and what really is the output of all of that, the effects. Almost all of my career has been spent helping small businesses in one way or another. I started my career as an accountant, and even though I was at a big firm, I was working with the owners of closely held businesses. I was an executive in several fast-growing small businesses many years ago before I started my own, my first company, which was the New York Enterprise Report, a media company for business owners, and then now with WorkBetterNow, this is what I love to do, is to help business owners fulfill their dreams.

That’s awesome. So, what was the moment that led you to starting WorkBetterNow, this business that you’re in right now?

Well, I’ll give you the medium-length story. So, I hired my first assistant maybe 11 years ago, and having the right assistant changed my life. I mean, I was not doing the work that I shouldn’t have been doing. I had more free time to spend on higher value activities, more free time to spend with my family and friends, and it just changed my life. And because I know a lot of business owners, I mean, hundreds, if not well over a thousand, a lot of people were asking me about my assistant. They knew she wasn’t in the office with me and she was remote from Latin America. And I was employing her through this other company based in Latin America. And at some point I said, you know what? I can do a better job than these guys are. And I won’t go into the details there, but I was then in Portland, Oregon, and a friend of mine from college met me there and we were having drinks. And I said, hey, I think I’m going to start this business for, at the time, it was different than what it is today. It was just providing assistance to business owners. We believe every business owner should have an assistant. I mentioned this to my friend A.C. and he said, I’ll do it with you. And that was 2018 and we’ve been off to the races ever since.

That’s exciting. And this is an exciting time to grow a business with virtual assistants. With Zoom, a lot of barriers came down during the pandemic, as you say. So, what’s the process for finding talent in Latin America or anywhere else? Can you describe it for someone who hears about that, maybe this is a weird idea or maybe they heard about it but they don’t know how it works and how they should even wrap their mind around it? What is this?

Let’s start with the wrapping of the mind around it. Let’s start there. I could talk about this for an hour, but I’ll try to condense it. So, business owners have to realize that we have been in and we will continue to be in a talent crisis. Don’t look at what you’re reading in the papers about how all these companies are doing layoffs and the power is shifting back to the employer and all of that other stuff. It’s really a large company thing for the most part. In a small business, every single seat counts. And if you look at the demographics and then changes. The demographics, meaning the Baby Boomers now leaving the workforce, and there’s so many more of them than there are of the younger generations coming into the workforce. Combine that with the fact that there’s differences in, let’s just say that there’s differences in work habits of the younger generations and my generation, Gen X and the Baby Boomers as well.

You ask most business owners and they’re struggling to find good talent. They may have everybody they need, but they’re like, you know what, if there were more people available, I would definitely be changing a few people because, as I said, in a small or mid-sized business, every single seat counts. So what a lot of companies are doing, and I really believe we’re at an inflection point now where this is gonna become the norm and not the exception, is they’re realizing that there is incredible talent all over the globe, particularly in certain areas of Asia like the Philippines and Latin America, which is where my company focuses on, that these people have great skills, fantastic attitudes, great English skills as well. And by the way, not only can you find fantastic people there, but because the cost of living is a lot less in those countries than it is here, it’s also less expensive. And there are other benefits, too. So that’s just to get your head around it. And then if you’d like, I can talk more about how my company works, but other companies work probably somewhat similarly. Would you like me to do that, Steve, like this whole notion of a talent provider?

Yeah, so we talked about this framework. I think we called it the New Talent Playbook. So when you recognize that there is a talent crisis, and there’s all that talent in Latin America and the Philippines, what do you do about it? How do you weave that into your organization? How do you get on board with this remote employment approach?

Yeah. So, first, I’ll back up for a second. So, you mentioned the new talent playbook, which is my book that’s coming out in March. And it goes into a lot more than offshore talent. It talks about how you have to just change your approach to, or at least evolve your approach to how you look at talent and how you manage talent from the culture of your company, culture is now more important than ever, to how you retain talent, how you attract talent. Share on X

It’s all changed in the past few years, how AI and automation can help, and yes, how offshore talent can also really mitigate the talent crisis. In terms of how it works, companies can go about doing it on their own. They can post jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed and other websites and try to go through the process on your own and then setting up some sort of employer of record in different countries where you’re employing people or you can work with, we came up with this term talent providers or talent partners, companies like WorkBetterNow, my company, where we will take out 95% of the hiring process away because we have the machine in place and the employer brand where we get thousands and thousands of applications a month. And then we have this thing called the top talent filter that whittles it down to the top one or two percent And then there’s a precision match process where we combine what our client is looking for in a particular role, with three candidates that they can interview and within a few days, they can have this person start to work with them. If you think about it, Steve, and you know this as well as anybody, most small businesses don’t like the hiring process, and they’re not good at it. So, in addition to providing amazing talent, in our case from Latin America, we’re taking 95% of the process off of their hands.

Wow, that’s definitely helpful. Because a lot of people who cannot afford to have an internal recruiting office or even nature function, and for them it could be very helpful. So how does that partnership work? So if you’re talking about, I think your term is talent partner, if someone wants W.B.N. as a talent partner, then how should they think about you?

So, like I said, there’s a lot of companies like us both for Latin America and the Philippines, and I can’t comment on how they do things. I can just tell you how we do things, but I would say that they’re all going to be somewhat similar, maybe just the differences will be in the details in terms of the approach. So as I had mentioned, we do all the recruiting, and the assessments, and all of that stuff and screening people. And then a prospective client will have a consultation. It’s about a 20-minute call with one of our client consultants. If they don’t have a job description ready, we will put one together ready for them. We give that information to our recruiting department. They then use this precision match process to line up three candidates that the prospective client will interview for each role that they’re trying to fill. And more often than not, after those three interviews, they’re ready to select at least one of the candidates. If not, we can repeat the process, doesn’t happen often, but it does. It does happen from time to time. And then, like I said, within four days or so, they’re working for the client, making an impact. And then there’s no contracts. And we basically designed the company in the process to treat our clients the way that we would want to be treated if we were using such a service. Share on X

Now, you also talk about improving the culture of a business. So how do you do that and do remote employees help or hinder your culture building activities?

That is a really interesting question. There’s not a straightforward answer to it. So I’ll just give you the way I think about this. As I’ve said before, and it’s going to be in the book too, if you don’t have a good culture in the office, and this, by the way, goes for a remote person that could be in the United States or anywhere else, because there’s really no difference, by the way. If you don’t have a strong culture in the office, you’re not going to have magically a great culture, remote or even hybrid for that matter. So really, the key is when you’re bringing on remote people, whether again from inside the US or out, the key is to integrate them into the company as well as you can, meaning if you’re hybrid, which you would be if you have an office and people come into the office and then hiring remote, have meetings where everybody’s participating through Zoom or you can have everybody in the office on one camera. Make sure you’re communicating not just in the office, but again, through whatever mechanisms you have, like we’re a hundred percent remote. We have a fantastic culture. We ask our employees both anonymously and then off the cuff all the time.

We over communicate. We have weekly calls for the entire company. Every department has their weekly L10, we run on EOS. We have fun activities that are all done remotely. We do happy hours, we do meditations, we do talent shows, we recognize people on Teams because we’re a Microsoft shop, and we encourage people to get together in person, and our employees are doing this on their own. They will visit each other and they’ll actually travel from country to country, which is just a great thing to see. So, it really starts, and I get into this in the book, it really starts by having a culture by design. To borrow a term from Jack Daly, it starts not a culture by default, which I’ve done in previous companies, but being really intentional about the culture that you want and walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

That’s very interesting. So, culture by design. You mentioned the weekly meetings with everyone in the company, and you talk about all these engagement events that you organize, like the talent shows and the meditation and get-togethers, are there other elements to culture by design? So, what other design elements did you like to choose?

Great question. I think, for us, it really starts with our core values. We have six core values. The first one, by the way, when my partner, A.C., and I decided to start the business in that bar in Portland, Oregon, we actually came up with our first core value because I told him, we have to put our talent first, and I need to know if you’re on board with that. That’s a foreign concept to a lot of people. And he said, absolutely. And then we were off to the races. Over the years, we put five other core values together. You can find them on our website, and we have a mission, and these aren’t just like words to put on a website or on a wall. We live and breathe these core values all of the time. So they’re involved in the hiring process. If we need to let go of somebody, it’s usually because of a core value misalignment, if you will.

So, developing those core values and living those core values, I think, makes a huge impact on our culture. And the other part of it is if somebody on the team, regardless of whether they’re a superstar or not, is not living those core values, they’re not going to last for too long.

Okay, that’s cool. That’s really cool. I mean, obviously, that’s great. If you model how to build a great culture and your people are part of this culture, they’re going to infuse that, hopefully, into your client companies, and they can get better as well. So I’d like to switch gears here and talk a little bit about your personal journey. And specifically, I’d like to ask you what personal sacrifices have you made for your business? I mean, it’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. Sometimes, people wonder if it’s even worth it. What kind of sacrifices did you have to make?

First of all, if being an entrepreneur is right for you, then it’s worth it. So if I go back to the New York Enterprise Report, that magazine that I started in 2003, I think too many sacrifices. I mean, that was a really challenging business. It was fun, but it was very, very challenging. And I was out almost every night when my kids were in their formative years, working on weekends and stuff like that. And in that case, that business was ultimately not very successful, although it did provide a lot of the intangible assets that we’re using today in WorkBetterNow. Many sacrifices. Now, with WorkBetterNow, less sacrifices. Why is that? A few reasons. Number one, I decided that I needed to do less. I need to focus on my unique ability and do less and let other people do a lot of the lifting. And funny enough, we’ve grown a lot faster with this approach.

Again, using EOS terms, I’m the visionary in the company and staying in that visionary lane has meant that I don’t have to make that many sacrifices. And, of course, having a partner, I think, goes a long way. Now, one thing I do want to say for anybody thinking about being an entrepreneur or people who are entrepreneurs today, and I just said this to my son last night, who’s a sophomore at Brandeis University, that you’re likely to make sacrifices being a business owner. You make sacrifices when you work for somebody else too, different types of sacrifices. You're probably doing things you may not want to do, but the biggest thing you get, I think, from being an entrepreneur is you get freedom. Share on X

You get freedom to do things the way you want to do them, including I can decide who we do business with, and it’s not just me, but it’s my partner and other members of the leadership team.

When we have a client just doesn’t fit with us, for whatever the reason is, and this has happened, we might say to that client, we have done this, like we can’t work together anymore. When you’re working for somebody else, you may not have that luxury, but you also have the freedom of time. I take vacations when I want to, I don’t need to get approvals for anybody. Of course, I’m not going to take a vacation when I have a speaking engagement, but I have the freedom of time and there are other freedoms too. So it’s a trade-off. It’s like people saying, well, it’s risky being an entrepreneur. Well, it all depends on how you evaluate risk. To me, risky is being in a corporate environment where I have a lot less control over my life. That to me is risky. And for people who work in a corporate environment, taking my own money, a lot of it, and putting it to work in a company, that might seem risky. That was less risky to me. So it’s a matter of perspective.

Yeah. I like to think of it as that, when you’re a corporate employee, you basically have one client. And if that client is not happy with you, they fire you, then you don’t have a job.

It’s a good way to look at it.

Yeah. If you’re an entrepreneur, you have many clients. Maybe you have 10, 20 or more clients. And if one doesn’t like what you’re doing, then you lose one client. And that’s a much better position than losing 5% of your business than losing 100% of it.

Yeah, this is an unrelated point, but I just posted something on LinkedIn, a comment on somebody else’s LinkedIn yesterday, the day before to this end, one of the things that I think entrepreneurs struggle with is, well, I like being this size, and sometimes they don’t say it, but they subconsciously do it. They want to be this size because they think it’s riskier to be bigger. And I actually think it’s the opposite.

You have more opportunities, more different sources to borrow money from, if you need to, you’ll have more options when you’re selling your company, you can attract more talent the bigger you are, because you should have bigger margins and bigger gross profits. So I actually think that, even within entrepreneurs and business owners, people look at risk differently.

Yeah, it’s easier to adjust. If you have a bigger company, you can cut some costs and actually downsize. If you are a solopreneur, what are you downsizing, your personal expenses? There’s not that much room to adjust. So definitely agree with you. So, before we wrap up, let’s talk about your book. So, the New Talent Playbook. So, why did you write this book, and what is the main message of the book?

Yeah, this book came out of my speaking engagements. So, when I decided to start speaking at conferences and things like that and got asked to speak at conferences, I didn’t just want to talk about offshore talent. I could, and occasionally I’ll do it. I really wanted to put this in the perspective of the bigger issues that small and mid-sized businesses are facing, which is this talent crisis, which is a combination of these demographic changes, as well as the fact that the younger generations of the workforce, everything changes for them. The reasons they’re going to stay at your company has changed. And let’s say, my generation, the Gen Xers, the things that are going to attract them to your company are going to change. So, I really wanted to take all of this knowledge that I gathered, and there were a few areas where I wasn’t an expert, we brought in contributors to help out, and really create the definitive book on the intersection of talent and small and mid-sized business, because again, if you’re reading most things around talent, they’re designed for large companies that has nothing to do, almost no crossover, as what it takes to lead and manage talent in a small and mid-sized business.

Okay, so really, you’re democratizing talent management for small to medium-sized businesses.

Yeah, that’s one way to look at it.

That’s awesome. So, you talked about entrepreneurship. What do you feel is the most important question for an entrepreneur to ask themselves?

I think it depends on their stage, but in general, I think the most important question is what do you really want? What do you really want? Well, now, why is that an important question? Some entrepreneurs are fixated on a revenue number. I want to get to this revenue number. Well, why do you want that? If you’re focusing on a revenue number, that sounds like an external gratification that you’re looking for. Because, really, what matters to you is going to be two things at the end of the day from a financial perspective. One is your net income. And number two, potentially, if you’re going to sell the company, what the proceeds will be. And obviously, there’s a correlation with revenue, but there might be easier ways and quicker ways to get to what you want to that aren’t necessarily revenue-based. What else do you want as an entrepreneur? Do you want freedom of time? Do you want freedom of who you’re doing business with? Really think about what you want and then what you’re willing to do to get there. And in most cases, from what I’ve seen, where there’s a mismatch with what they want and what they get, it comes down to a few things. Number one, letting go. Number two, building up a team of really talented people. And number three, really delegating and elevating to them, really being very clear on what we’re trying to accomplish and cascading that down all the way throughout the workforce and getting everybody behind, a common theme. For us, at WorkBetterNow, for example, we’re not focused on a revenue number. We’re focused on how many people can we impact. And we measure that by the number of WorkBetterNow certified professionals that are working for our clients. It’s one number that we can all get ourselves around and it creates simplicity. And again, that could be cascaded down to every department and everybody knows how they’re making an impact into that one number, into that mission.

Yeah, I just love it. That’s the Profit per X number, perhaps the number of certified professionals. So, these professionals, they go out and they help place talent? What do they do?

No, our certified professional, that is the talent.

They are the talent who you’ve certified that they are good people.

Yeah.

Okay, that’s awesome. So, if people would like to learn more about the services that you offer or your book, or maybe they want to connect with you, where should they go?

Yeah, so for the company, workbetternow.com, all the information you’re looking for. By the way, also a lot of content related to the New Talent Playbook, and a lot of content on how to go about getting an assistant, because we started, it was just about providing assistance to business owners. You can find all of that at workbetternow.com, best place to connect with me, and you’ll also see updates for the book would be on LinkedIn, just type in Rob Levin, WorkBetterNow, and you’ll see my picture of my bald head up there somewhere.

Awesome, well, Rob Levin, Chairman and Co-founder of WorkBetterNow, an agency placing extraordinary Latin American talent for small businesses, small and mid-sized businesses. Thanks for coming and sharing your thoughts on entrepreneurship and building a team and the culture with our listeners. And if you enjoyed the show, please follow us on YouTube, and like and review us on Apple Podcasts, and keep coming back because we have other exciting entrepreneurs joining us. So, thanks for coming, Rob, and thanks for listening.

Important Links:

• Rob’s LinkedIn
• WorkBetterNow
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• Management Blueprint^® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT 
• Steve Preda’s books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks 
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