Welcome back to Vision Pros. I am really excited
to introduce to you Chris Brown from WOW Remote
Teams in Phoenix. Chris, welcome to the show.
I'm really glad to have you here. Would you just
introduce yourself a little bit? Sure. Yeah.
Hi, Sue. Thanks for having me. It's great to
be here. I'm Chris. I'm with Wow Remote Teams.
You know, been an entrepreneur for many, many
years at this point, most of my life, just been
building businesses, done a lot of tech stuff,
done a lot of kind of everything's been internet.
Everything's been this focus of like remote work.
And, you know, this is this idea of independence
and freedom, kind of, you know, how do you get
time independence? How do you get financial independence?
And how do you build things that give you that?
And, yeah, it's all kind of come into this direction
of, wow, remote teams, which does that for a
lot of people, right? So we're kind of staffing
and recruiting. But, you know, we're bringing
great talent from Latin America to U .S. companies.
It's all remote work. I'm remote. My whole team
is remote. My founder is fully remote. We don't
have an office. Everything is built on this ethos
of how do we make sure that we can be wherever
we want to be, living the life we want to be,
but making an impact at the same time. Huge.
Man, it's all about that balance, right? It's
like one thing to do great work, but you've got
to have a life as well. Yeah, you've got to be
able to do stuff you want to do and do things
you love to do. I love to be outside. I hike
a lot. We paddleboard a lot. We're constantly
outside. I'm from Phoenix, like you said, so
summer here is unbearable. So we generally travel
the whole summer, wherever that means. So we
spend a lot of time down in Latin America, in
Colombia specifically. this summer we went to
montana and did the whole trip from phoenix to
montana and then back you know with our rv so
you know learning how to manage those things
again i've been doing this for a long time now
so i'm pretty good at it but learning how to
manage all those things learning how to have
the setup learning how to have stable connection
with stable you know electricity and you know
how do you how do you make all of that work so
that you can work you know but how do you how
do you work in a way that allows you to do those
things you want to do yeah it's a lifelong goal
i think it's a lifelong process still learning
yeah definitely definitely and you're not alone
so yeah tell me a little bit about what's your
vision for the people that you're serving so
i think that's kind of twofold so a we serve
clients of course people that are looking to
hire you know remote workers people from latin
america so of course they're looking to save
money they're looking for a great talent pool
you know if you expand outside of your own comfort
level of your own region and then your own country
and then your own you know hemisphere i guess
um you just expand that talent pool and find
really great people so you know part of it for
the clients is find great people find great people
at great prices you know find something that
you maybe didn't know was there before i talked
to a lot of clients that tell me i just heard
about being able to do this in latin america
can you show me what that looks like you go yeah
sure look at all these people my entire team
is in latin america everybody you're going to
talk to beyond me and my founder are in Latin
America and they're generally going to give you
a great experience. And if they don't, please
tell me so I can help them fix it. And then the
other side of it, of course, is the candidates,
the talent themselves, right? There's this whole
base of people that we're serving that aren't
the clients. They're the talent. They're the
candidates. They're the people that we're employing
and bringing into this. You know, they're getting
higher wages. They're getting to work in English
all day. They're getting to work with U .S. companies.
They're getting to learn the U .S. method of
doing business, our kind of our capitalist system,
which is. hugely beneficial to all of us. Look
at the way we live. We have great lives. This
system has worked really well for us. And it's
a little bit different of a system for them,
for people in Latin America, for people all over
the world. We do things a certain way. Americans
are very proactive, very go -getters, very sure
that we can do things even when you tell us that
we can't. So I think bringing a lot of opportunity
to people that didn't previously have that opportunity,
this is a new world that we live in. Like I said,
I traveled all summer. I was in my RV. I was
on my Starlink. I was connected with solar. You
couldn't do that 10 years ago. You could, but
you had to go places that had Wi -Fi. It was
a struggle. I did it previously, of course. I
was traveling. I've been traveling for many years.
But it was much more of a struggle. You really
needed to understand where you were going. You
needed to make sure that the resources were in
place for you to go there. And now, just with
Starlink, you can go basically anywhere. I went
to the Amazon a couple of years ago, two, three
years ago now. And I had gone there over a decade
ago, just traveling, going to this little place
called Leticia. It's the very, very bottom end
of Columbia. There's no road to get there. You
have to fly because it's literally in the Amazon
rainforest on the river. And when I first went
there, there was no connection. It was desolate,
like, you know, great people. There's a lot going
on, but you were not connected to the outside
world. So it was this great disconnect, like
you're in this beautiful place. And I went there
two years ago and I took a boat down the Amazon
from Peru to get there. And I had cell service
on the Amazon river on a boat. I got to Leticia
and the hostel, the hostel I was staying at had
Starlink on the roof. I was working from the
middle of absolutely nowhere. And I was like,
this is not disconnected at all. Like it was
great because I needed to get things done, but
it was also not great because I'm going to disconnect.
And then my phone's buzzing at me. I'm like,
well, I guess I got to work, you know? Yeah,
so you have that across this entire region, like
all of Latin America is now very connected. So
you no longer have to think about like, okay,
I need to go to Bogota, I need to go to Mexico
City and have a call center and have a bunch
of people. No, you can have people that are working
remotely from some small town. And now you're
really having an impact on that person's life.
You're having an impact on that person's family.
You're having an impact on that entire community.
Because now they're working for a U .S. company.
They're making way better wage than they would
have previously. And they're living in a small
town in the countryside in Mexico. It's fantastic.
The amount of opportunity that is being brought
to the rest of the world at this point in 2025
is absolutely incredible. And I'm just a small
piece of that. But I'm doing my part, I think.
So I think that's how we're trying to serve that
piece of our business. That's so cool. It could
really make a huge difference. And the ripple
effect of that is crazy big. It does. Yeah, it
does every day. I mean, you know, there's just
tons of stories of, you know, we like, so we
help our clients send gifts and stuff because
it can be difficult. Like you want to order them
a pizza for lunch or you want to order them flowers.
Like we have one, they wanted to send this girl
flowers as part of her birthday gift and they
contact us and we're like, yeah, sure. You know,
we'll call around and find a florist in this
small town and, you know, get them delivered
to her and stuff. So we find a florist. We call
the florist and we're talking to her saying,
okay, we're sending it to this person at this
address. And she's like, oh, that's my niece.
What? So we're sending this, you know, we're
employing this lady's aunt at this place. Wow.
Just these crazy knock on effects that happen.
And this is, you know, this happens all over
these small communities that we're just becoming
a part of essentially. It's a small world, isn't
it? It really is. Yeah. That's wild. Well, tell
me, let's shift gears a little bit. What's your
vision for your business for like the next three,
six, nine, 12 months? What are you hoping to
accomplish? Three, six, nine, three months is
difficult, right? Because we're going into the
holidays and hiring really slows down. So it's
mostly just taking care of our people, making
sure that everybody has a good stability and
good work. outside of that you know it's this
same kind of rolling motion hey we're always
looking to grow you know we're constantly growing
we're looking for new ways to market we're looking
for new opportunities we're looking for different
sets of clients like we love our clients of course
but what else can we do where else can we go
how does that look like there's whole worlds
you never even think of i just spoke to someone
who does government contracting and he was telling
me hey by the way there's there's a recruiting
contracts out there for government contracting
do you guys do that kind of recruiting It's like,
well, I don't know what that kind of recruiting
looks like. I've never even heard of that before.
So let's go find out. But yeah, we do lots of
US recruiting. We do lots of recruiting for US
positions as like a contingency headhunter. So
yeah, I can do that. So let's go check that out.
Let's grow in that direction if we can. You know,
but outside of that, it's always how can we do
a better job for our clients? It's always important
for our people primarily, because if we can.
elevate our people our clients will be happier
they'll get better people they'll get better
positions they'll get better work out of them
so how do we you know how do we give them better
opportunities how do we add to their education
how do we add to their benefits what kind of
things can we bring that would help them elevate
themselves whether that you know helps them with
our client or whether that helps them find a
better position in the future whatever that looks
like you know what can we do better every single
day or every month or every year in order to
increase the benefit of what we're doing with
that same goal that we talked about the beginning
right how do i increase people's level of autonomy
and freedom how do i allow people to do similar
to what i'm trying to do like that you know everybody
that works for us everybody that works with us
they're all fully remote we don't have a location
anywhere i'm sitting in my home office like i
there's nowhere that anybody has to show up to
but they have to work they have to do their job
they have to be proactive and get after it and
in order to do that you have to facilitate them
knowing what is possible right so you're looking
this is getting a bit long -winded but you're
looking for people with that same kind of mentality
you want to do you want to get after it so that
you can do whatever it is you want to do if that's
you then yeah let's do this you come join our
team be part of this and come work with our clients
and you know and same thing for the clients you
know are you looking for people that have that
kind of hunger that have that kind of they want
to go get it so that they can do all the things
they want to do like that's exciting to a lot
of people Not everybody. Not everybody likes
it, but it's okay. Well, you're not going to
be everybody's cup of tea. Yeah, I don't need
to be. No, absolutely. So let me ask you this.
When you built this, there was something burning
in your gut. You're like, I got to do this. Why
do you care? Same thing. It's just, this is the
means to the end currently. And it's a way to
expand that idea for a lot of people. So it started
because I was in another business and the founder
of this company started this and came to me and
was like, hey, you know, I was having trouble
with my CSR team in an e -commerce business that
I had. And they were all based in the US and
they were good people. They're expensive. And,
you know. having problems with it it wasn't working
as well as i wanted it to for the cost of it
essentially you know running a business is capital
management good capital management begets more
capital essentially the better you are at good
capital management the more capital that's going
to flow to you so you know trying to figure out
how do we do this better how do we find a better
way to progress with this and then i talked to
the founder of this company and she said why
don't you try some latin american people okay
sounds fine to me let's see let's you know set
up some interviews let's talk to them see where
they come in and within i don't know a few months
three six months something like that we had replaced
the entire csr team with people from latin america
the entire thing was remote work from latin america
it fit perfectly with our ethos which is the
same that i have now how do i build this so that
i don't have to be in the warehouse every day
you know at that point that company had a warehouse
because it was an e -commerce medical supplies
business And then everything else also became
Latin America. So the developers became Latin
America. The operations people became Latin America.
The only people left in the US had to be there
because we had a physical warehouse to run and
we couldn't do that remote at that time. Yeah,
heck of a commute. Yeah. You might be able to
now with drones and robotic forklifts and stuff,
but you still need somebody. Somebody has to
be in a warehouse. That's just how warehouses
work. you know and then i came out of that business
that kind of spun down for us and then i came
over you know i was talking to her again and
she was like hey why don't you come help build
the systems over here because i've been a tech
guy for every in every other business i was the
tech guy um you know and i did and i came over
and started building that and then it was like
hey you're pretty good at talking to people have
you ever thought about getting on the phone and
trying to talk to people i was like no i'm the
tech guy i'm not getting on the phone with anybody
what are you talking about and uh yeah it turns
out that people like talking to me for some reason
so i end up on the phone a lot talking to people
that's so funny so it just you know it rolled
into this thing and then it's like well you know
as you do that you start to talk to more and
more clients and you start to bring on more and
more talent and you just see that it is just
a great fit you know like it's what you're trying
to do it's giving remote work it's bringing opportunity
to people it's and it's bettering us businesses
we're bringing a huge talent pool at better prices
like it's just everybody's benefiting when it's
the right match that doesn't mean it's always
the right match it doesn't mean i can benefit
you today but if you need the kind of talent
that i can find you if you need fully remote
people this can be a good match you know if people
are looking for a job if they speak good english
if they're looking for the next level opportunity
that can be a great match and when you bring
those things together it you're making a huge
difference and it's just awesome to watch that
is so cool yeah i mean i could see this is you
know when you think about that ripple effect
you know that that'll wake you up in the morning
get you going yeah yeah no yeah and i mean you
know many friends from it now he's like people
that used to work with us they don't work with
it anymore they have some other job but they
still contact us and talk to us and tell them
what tell us what they're doing and you know
we're still in contact with everybody of course
because we have to use our network to say hey
by the way we have this new position open so
we maintain contact with thousands of people
at this point you know it's just it's a huge
effect it's it's wild you know and to watch them
grow like you you know part of our whole thing
is just We do long -term ongoing positions. I
want the longest possible position I can get.
I want to staff people that are very stable,
looking for clients who are looking for long
-term. We don't do projects. We don't do freelance.
We do long -term stable stuff. to watch that
happen to watch people go from like you know
a social media assistant to director of marketing
over the course of five years you're like how
did you how did you make that advance you know
it's wild and that one stands out because that's
a huge chunk but still so many just you know
constant emails coming in of hey we need to give
this person a raise and we need to bump them
up and also we need to backfill that position
because now we don't have somebody doing email
management or schedule management or whatever
that piece was okay great you know that person
gets to grow now they get to manage the next
level of person that's going to come in and it
just rolls and rolls it's awesome it's great
to watch that's so cool well i love that i think
it's a that's a fantastic you know everything
about that is really cool the opportunities you're
creating and the way that you're able to serve
your clients as well so well done yeah thank
you Thank you for being here today. I'm really
happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
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excellent time building out your vision and becoming
a vision pro yourself.