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#dogoodwork is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
Hey, welcome back to the podcast today.
I am talking to Erica Zagita.
Erica is the founder of a team
growth consulting and recruitment
company called Prosana.
She is a remote teams expert and has grown
a fully remote marketing agency from four
to 84 people from zero to 2 million in
annual revenue in a span of two years.
So the four to 84 people and
from zero to 2 million in two
years, that is very impressive.
And she is currently helping several
e commerce brands and agencies
grow their teams profitably.
And she is on a mission to help
startups build strong foundations
by supporting their team
development and operational growth.
And one of the key themes that we talk
about on today's podcast is how to scale
up and succeed while also staying lean.
Erika, welcome.
Hi.
Hi.
How are you?
Doing pretty solid, just hanging
out here in San Diego, drinking
my coffee, enjoying the day.
Oh, nice.
You're just starting
your day actually, right?
Yeah.
I know different parts of the world.
Cool to do that from the pod.
Yeah.
So what time is it for you?
Is it like 10 o'clock in the morning?
10 a.
m.
Is it eight o'clock?
It's eight.
Yeah.
It's 8 p.
m.
Actually.
So you're starting.
I'm finishing my day already.
Hey, that's how we do it around here.
Remote world 101.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Amazing.
And you still, you have the
conversation conversation and you
don't feel the time zone difference.
It's funny.
It's the energy you bring to the call and
it's the energy you bring with your phone.
If you're talking to a client, talk to
a team, it's just, it's the gravity.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Cool.
Cool.
Thank you for having me here.
It's amazing.
No, it's honors on mine.
One of the things that we were
chatting, before we click record,
and I've seen this a lot, like small
businesses, agencies, marketing services.
Like we either, and I've
also made this mistake too.
So I'm not just here to shame people.
I'm here to admit the first one.
I am guilty and culpable.
But like, when you.
not over hire, but hire where there's
tangent skill sets where, Hey, this
person actually can fit this job
description under their current job.
I've seen people hire family and
friends as they start to scale.
One of the most interesting
parts that, that I see from
your perspective is your lenses.
You can still grow, you can still
be successful, but you can do
that by staying lean, like the
company body fat percentage.
So tell me more about your experience.
Not only just like, how do you measure
being lean without just being frugal?
And how do you plan for that?
Yeah I think when we speak about
being lean, I always say there
are multiple aspects in the
business where you can be lean.
So team and the size of the team that
you decide to have is one aspect.
Then there's of course, operational
efficiency and how efficient you
are with your processes, with with
the organizational design and so on.
So I think, first of all, you have to
decide where you want to focus on first.
So sometimes you cannot do
everything and be in everywhere.
So you just start one by one.
Of course my expertise is the operations
and the team when it comes to hiring.
And being lean, I think there's,
it's always very difficult to
measure anything to do with people.
It's hard to measure efficiency.
It's hard to measure
the output versus input.
It's hard to do these kind of things.
But I always say, which is
very contradictory to what I do
because I do recruitment, right?
You always have to be very careful
about who you bring on board
when you bring them on board.
Is it really are they really needed?
Can someone in the team do it?
Is it better to bring one really
experienced person instead of
bringing a few junior people?
So just asking these kind
of questions will help you.
And you mentioned a couple of things that
I noticed startups make as mistakes is,
for example, hiring friends and family.
It's not that you cannot be lean by
hiring friends and family, but you're
actually making your life very difficult.
Because when things go wrong, Get
rough, it will be hard to let them go.
But then of course hiring
too many people too fast.
I've seen so many fast growing
companies like companies that get
so many work coming in and then they
need to bring on board new people.
Then that sometimes they feel like
they need to maintain this momentum
and just onboard those new clients,
they start to hire a lot of people.
And that's also a problem because
every person requires an onboarding.
Every person requires the training.
And unless you are able
to provide a proper.
Structure for that, then chances
are at some point you'll fail and
you and that fall that you're going
to have is going to be quite big.
And I'm saying this because I was
part of a agency that grew really
rapidly and I've seen all those.
after effects of hiring fast, hiring many
people, hiring two junior people, then
hiring two senior people at the time.
It's like you, like hiring is tricky
and anything to do with people is tricky
and you have to be very strategic.
So that's why I always say you have
to plan your hirings and your hiring,
like planning who you're going to
hire next always depends on what
exactly you're planning to achieve.
So your goals, what exactly you set
to achieve in the next three to five
years, or even, in startups, three
to five, probably doesn't make sense.
It'd be like two years.
That has to dictate also how your
team is going to look like, how your
processes are going to look like.
Yeah, that's basically what I would
say, what I would call being lean is
really knowing where you're heading and
then being able to put the resources
together to support the journey.
So that's the things that.
No, this is a lot to unpack.
There's two key things
that I want to dive into.
One is the I, I hate saying this
analogy, but I hear it from the words
of either clients or teams or past
clients, it's the chicken and the egg.
Which if anyone has ever
questioned about the question, it's
always the egg cause dinosaurs.
Hello.
Anyways.
Okay.
I would not know what
actually how I would answer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the thing is when we're looking at
costs, one of the things that I look at
are you're onboarding more and it's always
I don't know if these here's my pipeline.
Here's the forecast.
I have these clients that are
set to renew their contracts.
So this is steady, but then
I have either eight or five
pending deals that could close.
If we do that, we might be over capacity.
And again, it's it's a
nuance to measure capacity.
You know what your team can
handle through conversations.
It's not always going to be like the time
tracking stuff or the team's going to
tell you, like there is a certain level
of mindset and grit that the team can do.
Cause the time tracking might
say, Oh, they're not at capacity,
but they could say, Oh, We are,
we're actually at capacity.
We can't handle more or the time tracking
might say, Oh, they're overworked.
I was like, no, we can take on
one or two more, but the question
is always, what's the forecast,
what's the financial constraint,
the way that I solve this problem.
I'd love to get your
thoughts are measuring.
Obviously pipeline forecast cashflow,
but then also setting incentives so
that the person coming on can grow
as those new clients come in versus
just being an expense in the P and L.
It's never a perfect science.
But that's just one thing that I
always look at are when the team is
at about 80 percent capacity, you want
to start putting feelers out there.
So once you get people like clients
that are ready, you can start
onboarding everyone at the same time.
We'll love you to get
your thoughts on that.
Yeah.
It's actually, it's a good approach.
I think I always say when it comes to.
People capacity their growth when it comes
to, how much work can you take on board?
You always have to talk to people
as this is the only solution.
Time tracking.
Yes, it can give you hints on how the
team is doing, but, after using time
tracking tools for six, seven years
now and seeing them implemented in
different teams, I can tell you everyone
tracks their time very differently.
There are people who
just put on the timer.
And they put in those eight, nine
hours a day, and there are people
who work five hours and you think
they have a lot of time, but they
actually still work the same duration.
They just track their time differently.
So I think time tracking, it can
give you a lot of insights in terms
of like profitability how you should
allocate your resources better,
maybe to make one account or the
other account more profitable.
But when it comes to teams,
capacity, it's a tricky one.
So Talking to people, I would
say, is the best approach.
Now when it comes to, when you should
bring on board new clients, I think
it also depends on what the team says.
Also depends on where you want to go.
Is it having more clients?
Your goal.
And based on that, you
can make a decision.
But maybe there was a better question
that is there an, a question, another
question that you had in mind?
I don't know if I'm answering it well.
No, that was the first one.
Just brainstorm how you approach.
And it sounds to me that
you look at the goals.
You obviously look at talking to the team
and then you look at is it the right time?
So it's always, so it's a, it's an
ever evolving chess board at that game.
At that point, it's just making sure
that you're making the right moves.
Yeah.
And also, talking about clients,
for example, when you want to let's
say you have a lot of clients in
the pipeline and then you come to
a point, you run an agency, right?
And you can onboard a
lot of different clients.
But is that the goal?
Because by having more clients,
you will add a lot more complexity.
So unless you really have a strategy,
how you're going to filter those clients
and only keep the best ones, then.
For example, hiring too many people at
the beginning might not be the solution
because at some point soon, those
clients are not going to be there anymore
because you're going to let them go.
So it really also depends how
your client management turnover
and all of that happens.
So you have to think about it.
Is that, how many clients you onboard
and how many of them stay one year in,
let's say, and based on that, you will
also be able to decide how many people do
actually need to support the client work.
It's a really good insight.
Like I never really thought
about it that way of having a
process to weed out bad clients.
What are some of the things
that you've seen or put in
installed in companies to do that?
To be honest, I think first of all,
it's more marketing than anything
else is to really understand what
is your ideal client profile?
And I'm not talking about,
the revenue team size.
Anything else from like the metrics
perspective, but also how you want
the communication to be, is there a
cultural fit, everyone talks about
cultural fit from the team perspective,
but nobody talks about cultural fit
for from the client perspective.
And this is such an important thing.
Because agency is all about people.
So you need to make sure that the
team is satisfied working with
whatever clients you bring on board.
So there also has to be this like.
match culturally with the client
and sometimes of course you cannot
match like on all levels, but at
least there has to be respect.
And I don't have to explain, but
there are so many bad clients that,
get upset when they're not treated
well by their I don't know, Clients
and then they treat you same way.
So I think this is this is also
like one big factor when it comes to
weeding them out later on, it's how
they communicate, how they treat you.
How they communicate, they treat.
That's one of the things that
I look at in discovery calls.
Are, is it obviously
besides, can I help them?
Is it urgent for them to work with me?
Et cetera, et cetera.
The third is always, are they cool?
And that's my way of saying,
do they fit the culture?
Do they, is this someone
that I look forward to?
Yeah.
And sometimes, yeah, and sometimes
you won't know these things unless
you work together for three months
or like even longer than that because
sometimes a situation has to happen,
some sort of situation, a conflict
or something like that for you to
understand how they are going to handle
it and how they are going to treat it.
Treat you when things are not going well.
It's like interviewing, right?
The candidate can be perfect on
resume, can do amazing interviews.
Like I've seen it from all spectrums and
maybe you can shame me on this, but like,
when I hire, I usually, I'm the one that
has the gut intuition about the person.
And I can usually do that within
15 minutes, sometimes shorter.
It's served me well.
I've also made maybe one or two bad
hires or connects in the past, but 95
percent of the time that's just me.
But I've also been through like
first round of interviews, second
round of interviews, panel interview
one, panel interview two, and
you still hire a bad person.
So happens, when it comes to this
gut feeling and hiring based on gut
feeling, I always say I am also able
to tell if the person is going to be
good or not based on the gut feeling.
But I always say gut feeling is not
like some random feeling of your,
I don't know, enzymes and all the
bacteria in your stomach telling
you like, this is the person.
It's not that actually gut feeling
is usually a feeling you get based on
the experience you up to this point.
So this is what your gut feeling is.
So I have no problem with that.
And to be honest, you probably don't make
decision within the first 15 minutes.
You make the decision within the
first minute because humans have so
many biases that you meet the person.
Lots of things, for example,
you can relate to them.
They can remind you of someone,
they can show certain traits that
remind you of your best performer.
And then you automatically
make this decision.
So that's why I always say, when you
come to the interview, you already
know, if you like this person.
So make it the make it your goal.
For the rest of the interview, try to find
arguments that deny this opinion that says
that this is completely contrary thing.
And this way you will protect
yourself a little bit from making
a hiring mistake purely because
you're relied on this emotion.
Yeah.
So I think this is basically
how I would go about it, but gut
feelings, something that we all
have purely based on experience.
Yeah, I think the way that you define
it is much more articulate because
it's I definitely don't like to lean on
just the emotional part, but more like
the, like you mentioned, experience
part, just connecting the dots.
And it's it's cool.
There's a nuance to it.
The, I want to bring it back.
You mentioned something that
was critically important.
And I want to help have you
help us walk through that.
When I orchestrated and help like design,
We say the word growth, but really it's
it's operational design, sales design,
like marketing, like it's all by design.
But one of the key things that
was very important to me when
I orchestrated building a team
at house was the org design.
What does the dream team look like?
How do we structure that?
For me, that was, it's not
like I took a course on this.
It was just like, okay, here's
the way that I've structured teams
doing it profitably, et cetera.
And then you just fill the roles.
How do you walk through it in a strategic
way to do organizational design?
Cause sometimes startups like,
Oh, we're just a startup.
Just get a body and get them working.
Yeah.
How do you do org design strategically?
First of all, I would say it very much
depends on the type of business, like
what kind of, let's say, is it an agency?
Is it in let's, cause I also work with
e coms, is it an e commerce business?
If it's an agency, what
kind of work do they do?
First of all, of course, is to understand
your core services, what exactly you
as a business are offering And then
based on that, you need to have very
strong people in those positions.
And these basically are your
core roles or core functions.
Let's call it this way.
And then based on whatever you
identify, you then decide what
kind of supporting roles you need
to basically have the dream team.
And then sometimes, especially if it's
a small company, sometimes you just need
those core people at the beginning and
then support people will follow later on.
So I would probably say that.
This is the approach that I would go.
I honestly don't know if there's
like the right or wrong answer.
It just, you have to identify
what is your bread and butter and
make sure that for that bread and
butter, you have the best people.
And then, then you outsource
their their weaknesses, you
outsource their strength and so on.
So this is how I go about it.
How do you manage and split between
a new job role versus a line item
in someone's job description?
Because I've also I've admitted making
a mistake like that in the past, but
I also see this happen so often where
we think we need to hire someone
else because of this additional job
description when it actually can
be included in existing job roles.
How do you manage and balance that?
From what perspective are we talking
about people not being happy that
there's additional thing added to
their list or more from the technical
perspective, how am I going to add
additional thing to someone else's plate?
Like what outside of the management
piece, but more like on the design piece,
like there are, there's some roles that
can fill those things like, oh, this
is actually part of this existing role.
But they're just not doing it or they
don't have the proper training that
the management piece to support and
work with that person that's different
because like that's more granular
okay, can this person take it on?
Do they want to take it on?
Do I need to hire because of it?
Are they being overcompensated
for the work that they're doing?
Are they being undercompensated?
That's more nuanced, but more
from like an organizational design
piece, like distinguishing a
line item Description versus Oh,
this has to be a brand new role.
For it to be a brand new role, there
has to be enough of responsibilities,
enough of tasks to be done.
If it's just a few things additional
that need to be done, maybe that's,
it does make sense to distribute
it to different team members.
And then when the time comes
and you feel like, okay, there's
enough work to have a separate.
role for this, then I
would try to separate it.
When it comes also to people, like
when we hire for startups, we always
have this small thing, like a tick box
at the end of the questionnaire that
they have to fill out when they apply.
And that tick box is saying that I
understand that this is a startup
position and that my role might
change and I might have additional
responsibilities that initially may
seem outside my job description.
So this is how you collect
the consent that, okay.
I understand I'm joining a startup.
Things may change.
I might have actually additional things.
So this is more from the people
perspective, of course, but
apart from that, I would say.
The startup is like
this is living organism.
Things change.
And I'm not talking about, of course,
corporations, not my specialty, but you
first of all, give to people distribute
different responsibilities based on
whoever has the strength in the area.
And then when the time comes and you
feel like you have enough work for a
brand new role, then you basically open
up a role, hire a person and give all
the responsibilities to that person.
Yeah.
And it's not like a cut and dry process.
It sounds like you need to know all
the functions, the time associated with
those tasks, as well as talking to your
people, having those conversations.
Always, I always say that
there's no right or wrong.
I know there are so many books written.
I've read so many books about
organizational design, but it's all
saying, Same thing, also different thing.
I don't know how to say it,
but there's no right or wrong.
You look at your business and
every startup especially is
very different from one another.
So you look at what makes sense at
your at yours, like in your situation,
what makes sense based on your team's
input and you just make a decision.
While staying lead and ensuring that
you're not over bloating the system.
And not overcomplicating because
you, overcomplicate simple things.
And I've seen this happen a lot when
something that's supposed to be like
a very quick fix ends up being like
a, an enormous process for no reason.
So you always want to keep
things simple, keep it simple.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Approaching it as it is.
Erika, for our audience out there, what's
the best place for people, one, to thank
you for being on and two, learn more about
what you're up to if they need support.
Yeah.
LinkedIn definitely is the best place.
I'm assuming somewhere there's going
to be a link or my full name, so if you
just type my name, Erika Zagite you'll
be able to find me, connect with me,
message me, drop me a message, a voice
note, whatever it is, and we can chat.
Wonderful.
I'll put those links in
the show notes, Erica.
Thank you again.
Thank you.
I think you're all was amazing.
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This is Raul Hernandez.
Do good work.