Scaling Freedom: The 360-Degree Success Framework and AI Productivity

[00:00:15] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Hello and welcome to Lessons from the Leap. I’m your host Ghazenfer Mansoor. On this show, I get to sit down with entrepreneurs, founders, and business leaders who talk about bold decisions, pivotal moments, and innovative ideas that shape their journey. This episode is brought to you by Technology Rivers.

At Technology Rivers, we bring innovation through AI and technology to solve real world industry problems. If you’d like to learn more about us, head over to technology rivers.com and tell us more about your project. Today on Lessons from the leap we are joined by Linh Podetti founder of Outsourcing Angel, and a mentor helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses without sacrificing their lives 

 Linh , welcome to the lessons from the leap and for those meeting you for the first time. How do you describe what you do today and how your journey into entrepreneurship really began? Take your time to share whatever you can with our audience. 

[00:01:14] Linh Podetti : Yeah, sounds good. I think whenever someone says, who are you? I would say I’m a mompreneur at first. So mom, being a mummy is very important to me, and being an entrepreneur is very important to me. But I guess I’ve evolved from, you know, being a founder and CEO of an outsourcing company to now being very passionate about my new venture or new mission, which is to help entrepreneurs to create a great life, not just a great business.

So I’m the creator of a 360 degree success framework and also the  Linh’s life System that really helps you to achieve success in all areas of life. And the reason why I got into that is because, you know, as I was a single mom at the age of 20 and I was seeking out freedom. And I thought business was gonna give me freedom and definitely outsourcing was part of that. 

When you outsource your delegate, you create some sort of freedom for yourself. But then as entrepreneurs, we end up feeling that time. With more work, more todos. And then I quickly realized that, oh my God, like I’m in another rat race. And then it kind of got me into a journey of self discovery, discovering what is the meaning of life and what is happiness and fulfillment.

And I’m so grateful because then it led me into the current path that I am on, which is, I do live a very happy and fulfilled life. I don’t need to have the biggest business to be happy. And I realize that a lot of entrepreneurs feel that way. And so I think. M this is why I’m on a mission now. I feel like I was born again, but born again entrepreneur, who’s so excited about writing my book and, and getting my message out there.

[00:02:47] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Oh, thank you, thank you. And we’ll dig deeper into many of those. You touched many different areas, so being a single mom, setting up the outsourcing business. So yeah, let’s start with the outsourcing angel. When did you start? Talk more about it.  

[00:03:07] Linh Podetti : yeah. 

[00:03:08] Ghazenfer Mansoor : How about that business first? 

[00:03:09] Linh Podetti : Yeah, sounds good. So, I didn’t grow up in an entrepreneur family, so I had no idea what business to start. I actually didn’t mind working in a company up until my really good manager left. So I had a graduate job and my manager left. So at the time I was also already a single mom.  but you know, when you don’t have a really good manager and you realize that your life is up to someone’s hands and you know, your promotion that they promised doesn’t always come to fruition and you have nothing you can, you can’t do anything about it. 

And so I think that was when I was like, I really need a startup business. And also because I was a single mom, I felt like it was so restrictive to be able to take your kids well, you know, to school or when they’re sick and so I really felt I needed to control my time really early on. So. I think it was around the age of 25 when I was like, okay, I am done. I really need to start something. 

And the first business I started was actually a nail polish business. It was an e-commerce business. ’cause I think when you don’t know much about business, you think the only thing you can make money is selling products. Right. And at the time, I had a friend that gave away some nail polish and I was very naive. I said, oh, every woman wears nail polish. And if I could just sell, you know, to 1 million. People, a woman, and there’s like billions around the world and if I just make $1, I’ll be a millionaire. Right? I was very gullible.

And I think, I also think like that when I had a child, like when I remember my parents were like, you know, you’re having a kid. You’re too young, you’re 20 years old, you’re with a bad guy, you don’t have a kid. I’m like, that’s fine. You know, I know I can handle it. And when I had a kid I was like. Oh, okay. I get it.

It’s one of those decisions that you have to live with for the rest of your life. So I think that, you know, it just gives you an insight into the way my brain works. I was not very,  yeah, I wasn’t very strategic. I don’t think far. I just go with the flow and think everything is rosy. So anyway, the nail polish business didn’t go anywhere because.

I never even liked nail polish. I never liked to wear it, but one thing it did teach me that starting a business was like marketing, you know, getting your website out and then, well, if you know how to do it, you gotta outsource. So that was the beginning of learning about marketing and outsourcing, which then combined together into a skill set or experience that,  later on when I was trying to figure out what business to do.

Other entrepreneurs came to me and said, oh, you know, I’m trying to start a business and I need help. And I started going, you know, you can find people in oDesk at the time, which is Upwork now, this is how long ago I’ve been in the outsourcing industry. And you know, you can just get it done and it’s cheap.

And they’re like, oh, can you do it for me? And I’m like, oh, okay. So I charged them, you know, more than what I can get it done by. And then that’s how I started my first original business, which is more like a marketing agency, still using offshore staff. But I was overseeing it. But then a few years in, you know, you pivot again.

You’re like, huh why am I being in the middle? Why don’t I just go and hire the people for the clients? So the clients can just ask me, I want these skillset, I want these experiences. Can you just find those people? And that way I take myself to the equation. And I think that’s how outsourcing Angel was born in around 2015.

And it’s more scalable because I can just. Continue to hire people and help facilitate the relationship between the client and the offshore staff member. And yeah, so that’s what outsourcing Angel now is, is we specialize a lot more on marketing and I guess office support as, as the, the niches within the outsourcing space.

[00:06:35] Ghazenfer Mansoor : And where are your people? Are they mostly in the Philippines or  in different countries. 

[00:06:42] Linh Podetti : Yeah. So currently when we provide offshore staff to the client, they’re from the Philippines. Just so it’s easy to,  you know, it’s an infrastructure easy. We know the culture and we can kind of systemize it. But my original team who came from my marketing agency era  is still with me today. I have one from Indonesia. I have people from Singapore, people from,  you know, different parts of the world because that’s how I operated my own business at the time. 

But, you know, just for the ease of scaling the business at outsourcing Angel, we’ve been keeping it in the Philippines because, great English, great culture, great skillset, and experience in the BPO industry for a long, long time.

[00:07:26] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Okay, cool. No, that’s a good story. So,  what’s the number one mistake founders make when hiring VAs that actually increases their workload? 

[00:07:38] Linh Podetti : Hmm. Look, I think when people hire, their goal is to create freedom. But the thing is they think that they can just, their expectation is, I’m just gonna hire you, and then somehow you just miraculously take all my work away.

They don’t realize that. It’s like hiring a local staff member. You know, you wanna take care of the process, meaning you train, you onboard, you look long term. You really take them on a journey and explain where you’re going. Why you’re doing what you’re doing and how their job is,  you know, fits in with your organization and you take time out to actually train to actually invest in that, you know, learning, learning period.

And when they don’t do that, they end up, it’s gonna take a lot longer to achieve that freedom. So, you know when people come and they expect short term benefit immediately, that is when they set themselves up for failure. But then again, that is why outsourcing Angel, we exist because we know what it’s like when founders maybe have different expectations.

Founders may be not experienced with working with offshore staff. So we felt the need to be part of that journey along the way. And you know, we are always on the front end of going, I know what you’re after, you’re after scaling your business. You’re not just after a. Va you’re after an outsource person.

Well, how are you scaling it? Like what’s your goal?  have you set rock settings for, you know, to work with your team? Do you have a project management tool? Do you know much about AI marketing? You know, that they, you can do it this way or that way? And they’re like, oh, wow. And so then we try to help them a lot more than just going here, here’s a person for you. Because it takes a lot more as a leader to grow a business.

 It’s the leadership skills. It’s the strategy in business. It’s a lot more even than communication skills,  communication. And I’m not talking about even if, because you’re talking, talking offshore, that it’s different.

I’m talking about, I found, because I interview a lot of entrepreneurs and I’m amongst a lot of them, and I find that. You know, often we are not taught how to communicate well, and so we try to shortcut and assume someone understands us and then we get frustrated when they don’t and so those are the things that we continue to need to develop as a leader.

[00:09:48] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Yeah, and I think on a similar note, one of the challenges that I also notice in many businesses, including ours, is that many times people understand delegation in theory, but in practice they struggle to let go. 

So what is the mindset shift someone needs to make before outsourcing actually works? Yeah, because in our business we’re also in an outsourcing business.Obviously we do the software development, totally different, but that mindset is definitely the key hurdle, the team. 

[00:10:20] Linh Podetti : Definitely. And I think, yeah, just because you have staff doesn’t mean you’re delegating well because you’re still holding on to things because you believe that you do it best or it’s faster if you do it.

And you know, for me, I’m always thinking, well, if I keep doing that, then I will always keep doing that versus just investing a bit of time and giving it away to someone else, even if it means it takes five minutes. Because five minutes, if you add up every single day, times 3, 6, 5 days for the rest of your life, that adds up to a lot of hours versus, you know, Rory Vaden in the book of  Procrastinate on Purpose.

He talks about, you know, times it by 30. So let’s just say,  it might take you five minutes to do, but. It might only take you two hours to train someone, but that two hours is a lot less than the lifetime that you’re gonna be doing a task. So knowing that this is a short-term pain or short-term investment that you’re gonna have to give for the long-term benefit, you kind of push through.

And yes, it does require you to be patient to give feedback to them. You know, patiently wait for them to do the task, and maybe not even as well as you at the beginning, but then eventually they will. And I constantly audit myself because. I found that also because I’m always pushing myself to go, what else should I be doing?

What else should I be doing to grow my business? And because I need to do something else, I’m forced to have to let go of some other older tasks to someone else. And I usually then pass it to the next in line who’s very good at it because then they will need to learn to delegate and pass their old work to someone else that is more junior to them.

So we are constantly auditing ourselves. I’m like, I always challenge my team. It’s like, if you’re already this smart, I want you to keep doing things that are that smart or more, and if you keep doing this thing for a long time, I think you’re ready for the next thing. And if you’re ready for the next thing, who is your backup line?

Right? And so for me, I constantly pass it over to my, my, my staff. They do a lot of things from posting on my Instagram story through to booking life things for me, like a, like restaurant booking through to holiday planning. Anything that I think is just not a good use of my time, I delegate. 

[00:12:29] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Are there any tasks that founders should never outsource or should,  and obviously an opposite as well those should be outsourced immediately. 

[00:12:39] Linh Podetti : Hmm. I think anything that only you can do. So I’m talking about like, you continue to get audited until you get to the point where the only thing you know, no one can, you can’t outsource spending time with your family. Right. But everything else you can outsource, you cannot outsource you working at the gym, you spending, you know, quality time with your team, you coaching them. Those are the things that you know only you can do. But everything else, I think you just have to keep practicing to, to, to, to get used to it. Like at the beginning I thought I was the best recruiter. Obviously I started outsourcing angel.

I’m very charismatic and that’s what I thought. And I thought, I just have a sixth sense with people when I talk. I’m like, I know if they’re a good person or not. So then I also go, oh my God, how am I going to delegate this? But when you are forced with limited time, you can’t help but to go, okay, who’s next in line?

And I had a staff member who actually originally was a copywriter. She then became like a copywriter manager, like managing the whole bunch of copywriters. But then I go, hang on, can you help me recruit? And then you realize that it’s just in their soft skill, their ability to like to try new things, their dedication, all that soft skills allows them to really adapt to any skill set anyway, so then everything is systemized. 

You just go sit with me on an interview call. Watch how I do it, write down what you think you learn. Then I watch you, and then eventually you, you delegate it to them, and then you’ll see how she ends up doing a better job than you. And you’re like, okay, I’m actually not that amazing as what I, I thought,  I am.

But otherwise, I think everything is outsourceable. One thing that I would say is don’t immediately outsource, financial things like, you know, when people are very new to outsourcing and offshoring, they’re like, okay, I just hired my VA and I’ve given them my credit card to book my appointment, and I’m like would you do that to even just anyone you met locally? I don’t think so. It’s something that you build trust over, so there’s just some things that need a little bit of common sense. Or for example, they’re new working with you, whether local or offshore. Would you trust them to immediately talk to your clients or your lead or email someone important?

No. You practice slowly by getting them to draft an email. You check it before you send it, and maybe they send it on behalf of you, whatever it is. But you do it slowly. You just don’t risk it by going all in like that. That’s just being silly. 

[00:15:07] Ghazenfer Mansoor : No, very, very good point. Yeah, we have seen the same challenges.

Yes. So,  I think, yeah, in our business, as we hire new people, put directly on the client project or do we try them internally or maybe they’re working with somebody no matter how good they are. You just don’t know their working self. So it’s about the culture fit as well. It’s about how you communicate because you can’t have everybody just running the business their way. So 

[00:15:34] Linh Podetti : yeah, that’s 

[00:15:35] Ghazenfer Mansoor : all these things are important, even though these are hurdles as well. So,  those are the problems you have to solve. 

[00:15:42] Linh Podetti : And look, you can even get it wrong when you hire people on $200,000, four, $400,000. You know, just ’cause they’re senior and they’ve got a great resume and they work for great companies, doesn’t mean they’re the right fit for you.

Or even, you know, because I’ve had cases where they’ve been defrauded and you know, some big white collar frauds and it all came from very expensive, high caliber people too. So in, you just have to learn to trust people slowly. 

[00:16:10] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Yeah. Yeah, we have been lucky on the fraud side, but,   but I’ve seen those other cases,  burn a lot of money in the US as well.

[00:16:20] So it’s, I’m a big believer in the right people, right seat. So the people are good. How do you find them the right seat? If they are doing the right thing, then they’re already productive. Otherwise, even a 200 K person would not be probably doing. And we learn those the hard way. 

[00:16:40] Linh Podetti : That’s right. 

[00:16:41] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Because sometimes yes, you don’t need them,  a gun or,  or hammer to kill something small. Okay. So, while we’re talking on this one, I think,  part of that is as you are outsourcing the systems do make a difference in terms of what type of systems or the processes. So this is where I noted that a lot of those outsourcing attempts fail if you don’t have the right systems in place. Can you give our audience some ideas on what systems are essential for the remote teams to succeed? 

[00:17:22] Linh Podetti : Yes. So some essential things that you’ll need is a project management tool. Surprisingly, not everyone, businesses that I know who’ve been established and long time operating actually even have a project management tool.

So then tasks are all over the place and you, you told someone to do something and you, you know, dunno where it’s at. And so as simple as having a tool like the Notion or Asana, some sort of project management tool so that you know exactly what tasks it is. Who’s doing it and what are the due dates as well.

And then even a central place to chat, whether it’s Google Chat, slack, some sort of place. It’s like an online office. I always look at it. I said, treat it as if you, it’s your, it’s your office. You know, you, you enter this chat group and then there’s all these departments that you would have, whether it’s marketing, sales, and then you, you have group chats in there but other than those two, I would say no, another key thing around process and systems is using tools like Loom and recording how you do something and saving it. 

And often people think, oh, I need to have everything systemized and every do and dont’s, you know, set up before I get things done. I go, no, you just have to be one step ahead of that person.

So if. You know, you’re getting into doing some personal branding and you’re getting into LinkedIn. Well just start mapping out what you’re currently doing on the outreach process and just record how you’re doing it. You know? And I think the key thing is you, you should kind of know what you’re doing, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, maybe hire an expert and get it done right first.

’cause if you don’t even know what you’re doing, then it’s hard to go and teach someone else to do it. But in short. Shoot a Loom video, explain how you do it. Put it in a project management tool, get them to do it and give feedback. And then this is why I love waking up really early in the morning because I have time to really think through what do I really need done?

What do I need to delegate? And so then as long as you’re one step ahead, give them extra two or three tasks in advance, and then all of a sudden using Loom video, you’ve got these processes that not only is it for this person, it’s for someone else as well. So you can use this to actually systemize and create SOPs for your business.

[00:19:31] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Oh, those, those are really good tips. And while you’re on it, how, how do you have the productivity?  I saw that you also wrote a book on it 40 Productivity Hacks for Busy Entrepreneurs. Can you share the story about I’m guessing based on your experiences that you learned, you wrote the book and then 

[00:19:54] Linh Podetti : Yeah.

[00:19:55] Ghazenfer Mansoor : I’d also like to hear some of the tips. That you can share with our audience. 

[00:20:01] Linh Podetti : Sure. So you know. I was a single mom at the age of 20, and I was very greedy with life. Like I wanted to go out partying. I was, I had to take care of my son. I had to go to uni, I had to go to the gym. There’s all these things that I needed to do, and so I got trained to manage time very well, very early on, always trying to fit in everything my mom used to think like.

God, you know, like you try to, you try to do everything, you know, I’m like, somehow I just believed that I could. And I think I wanted to say that ’cause it kind of stemmed from very young of just optimizing my time. But also growing up, my mom made me work at a very young age. At the age of 10, I had to go home from school and start solving for her.

And I used to just figure out ways to just hack my brain to make sure that I, it, it feels faster. So I remember every time there was a bundle of clothes that I had to sew, I would put it all onto the. The desk so that it feels like that is all I have to do. And I would do it so fast. But the problem is because I’m so fast, my mom keeps giving me more work.

I became like an legit employee to her, to her home business. And so anyway, we had a lot of struggles and that’s why it led me into being a single mom, like running away from home and all that stuff. So over the years, I’ve always loved. Just doing things fast and, and, and hacking things. And it wasn’t until, you know, the other year, maybe two years ago, my girlfriends, I, I, I started to go, I really wanna mentor people, help people.

Back then I thought, I don’t know much yet, you know, imposter syndrome, you always think you’re never good enough. But when I decided, you know, I wanna help some friends, and I started to help my friends and one of the key things they always ask is, how do you manage everything? You, you can do everything.

You’re traveling, you’re doing all these things. And so I put them together, I guess. My productivity tips, you know, the things that I’ve tried, it’s not all mine. There are some things that I created. There are some things that I just learned from people from, you know, things such as Eat the Frog. First is Brian Tracy.

It’s about doing the hard things first. And I have something that I do similar, which is having,  a must do and a to-do list. So I have lots of things in the to-do list, but every day I only focus on three main things I must do. And those things are very impactful. I asked myself, will this bring the best,  you know, impact to, to the business?

So when I put these productivity hacks together to share it with my mentor group, I was like, oh, actually this could turn into a book, because I’ve always wanted to write a book. But once again, I never thought I was good enough until one day I bought this quotes book that I found on Instagram. There was an Instagram page, had lots of cool quotes, and I thought, oh, I’ll buy this quotes book.

When I ordered from Amazon. It literally was just a book of quotes. There was no dedication, there were no thank you pages. There were no four words or anything, and I’m like, oh my God. It’s like you overate and think a book has to be this perfect thing and it has to be the best seller. And I just said, you know, I’m just gonna get the book out.

And I think I’m glad that I did get the 40 productivity books out because it was fast to produce. It was, it’s, I made it very short. If you, if you get the order, it’s actually like the thinnest book that you’ve ever seen because it’s made for busy people. Right? So I’m gonna give you hacks, by hacks, by hacks.

But if you just even try to take one hack and do it, it will change your life because it’s hard to actually implement, you know, the hack. ’cause the hack itself is like a new habit.  and so when I launched this Frauded Productivity Hacks book, that was when I really fell in love with writing books.

And so my upcoming book is called The 360 Degree Success Book.  and it’s a, it’s a, a playbook for entrepreneurs on how to live a fulfilling life with no regret. So this book is gonna be 300 pages, but it will shed more light into some of the hacks that I put in the 40 productivity book.

So one of my favorites is Waking Up Early. You’re gonna laugh at me or you think I’m crazy, if I wake up at 3:00 AM so you’re doing this podcast with me at 6:00 AM. Nothing, piece of cake. I’ve already woken up. I’ve already done some impactful work. I’ve already exercised with my husband between five to five 30.

We already had a coffee together, he’s gone to work and I’m doing this podcast. So my day is already winning. And then,  you know, by the time the kids wake up, whatever, it doesn’t matter. I can react to life later, but I really get to own my day. So that’s one of the important hacks that I put in the 40 productivity hacks.

[00:24:19] Ghazenfer Mansoor : That is so cool. Yeah, early morning is definitely. There’s an early morning club as well, 5:00 AM club. So you are in the 3:00 AM club. 

[00:24:27] Linh Podetti : Yeah. 

[00:24:29] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Which is very rare, but that’s impressive. That’s, are there any other quick tips that you can share on top of your head? Yeah. 

[00:24:40] Linh Podetti : Yeah, so one of the key things is we always think that we need to be more productive, but when we think of being productive, we always think about being more productive to do more work.

So in one of my hacks I talk about life,  audits and I guess year mapping. And it’s really about. Assessing all your other areas of life, not just in business. So it’s your health, it’s your relationship with your wife, it’s, it’s,  you know, time with your kids and how are you going with that so that you can actually see the gap between where you are and what the ultimate success looks like in those areas.

And when you see those gaps, you start setting goals. Better goals. Goals that actually mean something. And so then you end up being productive, doing what matters, being productive, meaning making the most out of life, not just trying to make the most out of your day to do more work. So I think there is that hack in there, but I go into a lot of detail in my 360 degree success book.

So that’s one of them as well.  and most importantly, it’s. It’s just having a really set morning routine in the morning where you journal, where you spend time actually strategizing and, and, and reflecting. Otherwise, you feel like you’re not progressing because you don’t take time to take stock of what you actually do in life.

But yeah, there’s plenty, there’s 40 product hacks in there. But you know, like one important thing that I always do every morning when I wake up is I,  you know like, really think about my, what am I gonna eat first? The frog, the, the big frog,  the one that actually moves the needle. And I think a lot of times we don’t spend enough time doing that.

We might wake up and start. Checking our emails and we get a dopamine hit of just ticking off all the, as many to-do’s as we can, but it actually doesn’t change our life. 

[00:26:24] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Oh, those are really good, good tips. Mm-hmm.  so, and congratulations on the 360 Success book. So 

[00:26:32] Linh Podetti : thank you.

[00:26:33] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Looking forward to reading that as well.

[00:26:34] Linh Podetti : Yeah. 

[00:26:36] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Okay. So AI is everywhere. Nowadays, AI has changed pretty much every industry. How has it changed the outsourcing industry? Did it increase demand? Did it reduce? How is it helping you in different parts of your business? 

[00:26:53] Linh Podetti : Yeah. Oh my God. I cannot live without AI. I don’t know about you, but I just love it.

And the more you understand how to use it or learn the prompts and learn the gpt that someone’s created for you, or the tools that are made to make your job easier, every single person in my company is so much happier in their work. Like, I mean, we were happy already. Just having a great culture, but when you’re empowered with a new skillset and the tools that make your life easy, somehow, you just feel a lot more invincible.

You know, like one of my, my staff I just told him about, so he’s a, he’s a graphic designer who learned to do website development and then we told him about a tool called Lovable because we actually, I met a guy named Scott Inghim from EO Orange County, and he’s got a full course on AI marketing. And you know, one of the tools that.

He was lovable. And I remember telling my staff, Hey, I need a quick landing page to,  to say, you know, a website coming soon, but using lovable, he was able to create it like a full website with all the menus and everything. And I’m like, oh, how, how quickly did you do that? And it was like a few hours, right?

And so. His job is faster. And then, you know, I’ve, one of my EA who’s also my social media marketer, she’s always struggled with copywriting. She’s Indonesian. Yes, she can communicate, but when it comes to copywriting, she’s just not as good. But of course now she’s amazing. She can write in my tone and she just helps me out a lot more.

And look, we will always find more work to do, right? People think. Okay, AI’s gonna take your job. But hey, we are entrepreneurs. We know how to create more work for ourselves. We know how to create more services. We know how to create more ideas. And so there’s always gonna be more work. And when I did the AI marketing course from Scott.

I quickly realized, even as entrepreneurs, we are so time poor, we don’t wanna spend time learning how to use the tools either. We need the people to actually do it. So this is where, you know, your outsourcing company, my outsourcing company, we still have the people to do the work for you because we all are not made to learn how to use tools.

I know, I know that it works, but I can’t be bothered spending time doing it. I love having a conversation like this. I love mentoring. I love speaking. I love doing the things that only I can do. Not doing the, you know, learning how to use AI tools that my, my staff can do. So I think it’s the power of the people and the tool that we, we are gonna come together and we’re gonna do even more amazing work.

[00:29:22] Ghazenfer Mansoor : And, and as you’re doing this work, have you noticed any change in the type of people? Do you need to work because people have a different way of working and now AI requires a little bit of a different way. Like you need to articulate things. So versus somebody just instruction followers, how has that impacted your hiring?

[00:29:48] Linh Podetti : Yeah. I think ultimately what we want is people who love learning, people who are easy to adapt and, and, and quick, you know, they, they love to learn. They’re quick learning, and they also are curious about innovation and doing new things. I think once you do that. You are always looking for new ways of doing things.

And so, you know, at the moment I can see the transformation within my own company. The reason why we were able to pivot quickly and adopt is because we have that mindset,  and you know. No matter what era we are in, we always have a certain group of people that are so traditional and so stubborn and don’t wanna try new things.

You know, there are still people, even though we’re in the AI space, there are still business owners or, or traditional businesses that still use Excel, that are still barely just using some project management tools. And so, you know, when people say, AI’s gonna take over the world, but  unfortunately, there’s still people that cannot.

Press the keywords, you know, properly and then still finger pointing at the keyword. And then there’s obviously people that are very advanced and can prompt and can do all these crazy things. And you know, when I started talking to people like Scott or other AI experts, I realized that I’m just a beginner in AI.

There’s still a lot for me to learn. And so, yeah, in short, I think, uh. As long as you are always open-minded to learning, you will never go your, your, your job will never be a threat. And you’re always able to figure out new things that you can provide to your clients, better ways to work with your,  you know, your audience.

So, you know, when people come to hire a virtual assistant from me, if I learnt a new AI tool. Like, for example, I learned whisper flow recently. It’s a voice to text and it’s so fast at typing and accurate compared to the little,  rec record, you know, the little voice thing that is embedded in the phone.

When I found it, it was so amazing. It made me more productive. I just started sharing with my clients or friends that I know and you add value to them even though it’s not. What you normally do, but that’s how you gain trust and that’s how you add value. And then that’s how they become, oh, you know, I wanna work with you because you, you give me more value than just what I came for.

[00:31:59] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Cool, cool. No, you’re right. We always have more work that we can do. Now with AI, you can achieve more of that. I am with you that AI is not replacing, but it’s making you way more productive. So, 

[00:32:11] Linh Podetti : mm-hmm. 

[00:32:12] Ghazenfer Mansoor : You can achieve 10 times more. You’re more productive, you’re more happy because now you are excited that, oh, I’m able to do those 10 things, which previously I was only able to do two things in a week.

[00:32:22] Linh Podetti : Yeah, and this is where the danger is, or the, the warning I have for entrepreneurs is that, do you know when we first discovered emails, we’re like, great, we can email faster, but guess what? Now expectations are higher, your response rates need to be faster. And you just email thousands of emails to the point that you just have no time.

And people are stressed. People have mental health, people get burned out, right? And so once again, AI is another tool, another. Capability that allows us to do things even faster. So instead of having one business, we might have 10 businesses, but this is where we need to really think about our life. Where will we start to prioritize our life?

Otherwise, work will always overtake us. And imagine we are now empowered. It’s like we will all of a sudden become Superman at work. We are gonna be able to produce so much more that we are gonna get, get even more addicted. To work. We are going to, you know, together with AI we’re like, oh my God, I can’t believe we created this cool thing.

But that is so addictive, right? And, and so be careful and start to go, okay, where’s my boundary? How much work should I actually be doing? What is important in my other areas of life? And start prioritizing it. Otherwise, there is never that day where I will have time for my family and health. 

[00:33:39] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Yeah. Cool. Good point. Good point. So are you more of a person who thinks that AI should automate everything, more agentic way, taking actions or versus  do you like to have more humans in the loop as well? Where do you see AI is today? 

[00:33:59] Linh Podetti : I think it’s a combination.  I think we need to be intentional.

So it’s not about always doing everything fastest and automating everything and treating everyone like a number. I think it’s about where in the process do you feel like you want to add value? So for example, like I still try to do a lot more in-person coffees and meetings and, and because I genuinely wanna know people and meet people and you know, when we are emailing the clients, whatever, we can kind of automate everything.

But there are still some manual things that my team likes to do as part of the client experience where it’s a Loom video saying hello and explaining something, and then I guess it will slow me down in terms of my scalability, but it comes down to your values. I think my value is human first. Put people over profit.

So I’m always going to live with that principle of really caring about the process. I know that there’s other really scaled up companies in the BPO or in the outsourcing industry that are super automated. Everything is, they scale very fast, but their churn is very high. But hey, they can afford it and that’s just the way they like to operate.

But I think it just comes down to. What resonates with you, what sits well with your values, and then ultimately understand that eventually when everyone is automating, everyone is systemizing. How can you differentiate by being more human? And I think that’s the thing that you need to discover for yourself.

[00:35:26] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Yeah. Cool. Cool.  I was reading somewhere that you donate 10% of your profit to a certain nonprofit. Can you talk about it? This is, yeah, huge. 

I call it like it’s a double bottom line impact. ’cause on one side you are creating opportunities for the growing world and the third world. And then at the same time you are donating the profit out of that as well. So it’s a real impact. That’s so amazing. 

[00:35:57] Linh Podetti : Yes. So I always knew deep down that I wanted to give back. I remember when I first started my business after a few years in the marketing agency, it was like, I felt like some sort of sort, some sense of unfulfillment. And I remember thinking maybe one day I should work for the UN or some sort of world vision or or charity work because I felt in my heart I needed to do something good.

But then along the line I discovered that, okay. The, the, my line of work, I actually create jobs for people who can’t travel to work. It takes hours to go to work. When I went to the Philippines, I was like, oh my God, I’m actually making a difference. So I started to feel a lot more connected to my business.

’cause originally I thought my business just helped me to. Create freedom for myself and okay for some staff that works with me. But I really did feel like there was an impact. But then later on I,  one of my staff members had a cousin who used to be rebellious and criminal. He kind of also discovered faith and discovered Christianity and he just changed his life.

He started to volunteer his time, trek up the mountains and started to help the people that don’t even get help from the government. ’cause they live in really remote places in the Philippines. So we thought, okay, we’ll start giving to them and give, you know, a few hundred dollars. But a few hundred dollars goes a long way to people living in extreme poverty.

So we started to feed them. We started doing solar panel installation, water wells. But because these volunteers are not an organization, they don’t take any money for administration or salary. Every dollar you give you can see an impact immediately. And so it, it just became part of our DNA to just give back something and then.

You know, even when we are early on in the business, as you know, profit is hard to make, sales is hard, but it was just part of us. And I remember one time when I had a business partner at the time and he said, you know, we need to watch our spending. We need to watch our profit. Let’s cut out the charity because we can’t afford it.

Right? And I said, no, like that is almost, it’s like, it’s kind of like Charity first. It almost just became part of my principle. It was like charity first. So then over the years, even when we weren’t making profit, we were always giving money away. And yes, it is like 10% of the profit, but even after the months that we don’t make a profit.

There is still money going out to it. And when I hired a business coach a couple of years ago, he did go to me,  Linh , you run your business like a nonprofit. And I kind of go, you know what? I really feel grateful that I have a business that I don’t owe any money. Like I don’t have any debt, I don’t have any business loans.

I can pay myself a decent wage and my staff is fairly paid, and even if we’re breakeven or make a little bit less profit today, but more profit later, but at the same time, we are still giving away charity to charity. I feel like I’m on the right path. I feel like. I’m winning. And I think that’s a reminder for all of us to enjoy the journey along the way, because we often say, wait until I make this much money, then I can help or wait until this happens, and then I can, you know, do this and that.

But I think for me, I’m just prioritizing at the same time. Sure. Now that I know more financials and I have a business coach, my goal is to make the business more profitable, more sellable, whatever it is. Because it’s still a game of business. But at the same time, I don’t wanna lose my principle if my business coach turns around and says, okay, no charity work.

You know, you just have to focus on building a profit. I think I’ll say goodbye to the business coach before I stop doing the charity work. 

[00:39:37] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Well,  I hope the business coach will listen to this podcast as well. Okay, so if you could go back. To the version of yourself who just started out as a struggling single mom, what is the one leap you would tell her to take sooner than later?

[00:39:56] Linh Podetti : Hmm. Well,  Linh , as a young girl, has always been a dead devil anyway. She would always go for things and not be scared. Like starting a business without even making that much money. Yet saying to herself, Hey, if I work 40 hours at work, how am I gonna make money here? Oh, let’s just jump. And then I jumped, and then I had to try to figure out how to do it.

So I’ve always been that way. But one thing that I didn’t do is I didn’t have a mentor early. I was too tight, I was too stingy too. In someone that has done it.  and so I was figuring out a lot of things on my own for many, many, many, many years, and I think I only value paying for professional help, you know, in that last eight years, seven years, whatever it is.

I also didn’t have a routine of reading books all the time. You know, you get so busy when you’re early, when you’re younger and you’re trying to figure things out, you’re really never learning from the best learning from someone who’s done it. And so, yeah, I would tell the old  Linh to like, just slow down.

Let’s ask the right people. Learn from books. Have a routine of always reading because what you don’t know, you don’t know and you’re gonna waste a lot of time just doing. ’cause I think the old  Linh just is too busy doing. And not enough time thinking, reading, journaling, reflecting back then 

[00:41:19] Ghazenfer Mansoor : I definitely resonate with that because these are the two things that I also learned along in my journey as well.

So lastly, what is the most expensive lesson you have learned that had nothing to do with the money? 

[00:41:33] Linh Podetti : Expensive lesson. I think expensive When I think of expensive, I,  if it’s not money, it always feels like pain. It hurts, I think. Over the years, you know, people can make you really happy, but people can also make you really sad.

And I think I’ve had incidents where I’ve had business partners who weren’t values aligned, we had to break up. And it feels a bit like a real divorce when you let go of that person.  and then along the way you might wanna help. Like there was, there was a girl that I met who I really wanted to help her and even hide her into my business. But not only that, I see her as a friend. 

And when you try to help someone, bring them into your, your, your circle, help them with money, help them with work, but then you learn that they were just using you, you are part of their, their stepping stone to what they, where they wanna go.It’s not a genuine relationship. I think those ones always hurt a lot.

You would have days where you are just having flashbacks and you start thinking about like, was that even a real relationship? You know? So I think expensive lessons in business have always been painful for me.  And you know, even letting go of my long term COO, you know, last year it was also like, oh my God, I cannot believe.

That happens, you know, or, and, and you just have to walk away from all those painful relationships. So, but hey, people are people, people are complicated. 

[00:43:03] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Well, no, thanks a lot. Thanks for sharing these nuggets. So,  what is next for  Linh ?  any new leap that you are taking?  Anything you wanna share?

[00:43:20] Linh Podetti : Well, you know, I used to be really shy and I knew that I needed to learn to speak and go out then and put my hands up and, and be a speaker. So it’s been a long year long, like my whole life journey to, to be a better speaker and that even earlier on when I was super shy, I wrote down in my like dreams and vision board that I wanna be an international speaker.

You know, it was kind of like. God gave you this, this, this calling, but you have no idea how you’re gonna do it and how you’re gonna get there. But I finally can see it now, like now that I really have a message to tell the world and I’m writing the book and I’m speaking, I’m sharing my message. I really now can see that calling, that thing that God gave you in your heart.

Was actually true all along the way. There is one day in the future you are going to do that. So yeah, I do see myself speaking in front of thousands of people, not just a group of, you know, 10 EO entrepreneurs.  or, or, you know, recently I spoke in front of 30, 40 people in a, in a group setting. I really do see myself speaking on stage in large crowds, which yes, I used, used to be the scariest thing I could ever imagine doing, but.

I’m just excited because I want to get my message out to the world. I wanna wake up entrepreneurs before it’s too late. 

[00:44:36] Ghazenfer Mansoor : That’s a great way to share your experience,  and all the things that you learned. Thanks a lot,  Linh, for sharing all these nuggets. This is so much value for our audience.  How can people connect with you if they’re interested in learning more about you, about the outsourcing angels, as well as any other initiative that you’re taking?

[00:44:59] Linh Podetti : Yeah. Well thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you,  this morning. But yeah, I am all over the internet.  outsourcing angel.com is the outsourcing business, and  Linh podetti.com is my personal website. So if you’re interested in living a better life, that’s where  Linh Podetti has all that information, even quizzes and the books that you’ve mentioned there.

And then for outsourcing Angel, we can help you to free up time by hiring people. But otherwise, I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, I’m everywhere. 

[00:45:31] Ghazenfer Mansoor : Cool. Thanks  Linh . It was great to have you on the show. Thank you for your time. 

[00:45:37] Linh Podetti : Thank you for having me.