Understanding How to Manage Remote Marketing Teams With Timur Valishev From JivoChat [AMP 179]

- JivoChat: Messenger for teams to communicate with clients across all channels
- JivoChat’s Goal: Be more effective at handling multiple inquiries, calls, reminders
- Why remote staff and physical office? Temporary option turned permanent perk
- Competing for Talent: Option to work remotely is main way to hire the best staff
- Marketing in Local Markets: Working in America, Asia, Africa, and India for ROI
- U.S. Market: Primary source of revenue internationally, but burns more cash
- Lessons Learned: Conduct as many trial-and-error experiments as possible
- Most Common Fear: Remote staff is not working, but doing everything else
- Remote Work: Not for everyone; requires self-motivation and discipline
- What are outcomes of work, rather than maintaining the illusion of being busy?
- Scouting Talent: Find and accommodate remote freelancers via specific sites
- Misconception: Money is not always saved working remotely or by paying less
- “I was thinking that it was only temporary. We will grow, we will make money, we'll rent an office with a view...it turned out that we like it and quite a few perks emerged.”
- “The demand for good programmers is getting higher and higher every year. It's quite tough to hire a programmer because we are competing with big guys for those brains.”
- “To be successful there, you often need local folks because it not only needs to be translated properly, it also has to use the most efficient marketing channels.”
- “The only thing they can show you is the result of the work. Either it's there or it's not there.”
Understanding How to Manage Remote Marketing Teams With Timur Valishev From JivoChat
Click To TweetTranscript:
The first question I've got for you, Tim, can you tell us what your team is building over at JivoChat and what kinds of problems are you solving? Timur: Jivo is a messenger that small medium size teams can use to communicate with their clients across all possible channels in online chat, via phone, via email, via social, via messenger. Our goal is to make those guys, our clients, effective so they can receive a lot of inquiries everyday, call the customers, reminders to fill up with customers, and do it in a way that's very very simple to implement. It's a very simple app. Easy to use, it looks quite like the messenger app with the list of clients having conversations with clients. But it integrates all business communication channels. Ben: Very cool, great stuff. I understand that your team has a lot of remote staff. It did some when we were chatting a little bit earlier. It did sound that you have a physical office in Moscow as well. Was there a reason why you chose, I mean for yourself, to be remote? I imagine you have a lot of remote staff, but you also have a physical office. Could you explain why you chose to structure your business that way, between the physical location and your remote staff? Timur: Sure. The reason is quite simple. We didn't have enough money to rent an office when we started. Me and my partner, we are both programmers so we started developing the first version of our product sitting at our homes with our code server being under my desk. We hired the first part time remote guy from Kazakhstan because we can only afford a part time guy. To be honest, at the beginning, I was thinking that it was only temporary. That we will grow, we will make money, we'll rent an office with a view, and stuff, but it turned out that we like it and quite a few perks emerged along the way.



