RWL013 How to Lead Remote Sales and Build a Global Workforce w/ VP of Sales at TopTal, Mark Bosma

Building Remote Work Culture Growth

Alex Wilson-Campbell

0:00

Hello, it's Alex again from Remote Work Life. I created the Remote Work Life podcast to help you thrive as a remote worker and stay connected with what's current. I'll be sharing interviews with CEOs, leaders and experts from the remote world and beyond, and all of this is to hopefully help to contribute to your personal and business growth. And in today's episode, I have a great guest by the name of Mark Bosma. He is the VP of sales for one of the leading remote businesses anywhere in the world TopTal, and TopTal is a freelancing platform that connects businesses with software engineers, designers and business consultants globally. And it's important you listen, because we talk today about something that really underpins your growth as a remote professional. It underpins your growth as a remote business as well, and that is the idea of building culture, and that's how I connected with Mark in the first place.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

0:57

I read his excellent blog about how to build culture in remote teams and how important it is to have an established culture, have a culture that everybody gravitates towards to be successful. And in today's episode, as I said, we talk about culture, but we also talk, briefly as well, about how TopTal go about hiring, how they go about shortlisting as well, and that's obviously important for you if you're looking for a remote role at the moment. Another thing to listen out for, something that I know you may get excited about, is the fact that TopTel happens to be hiring at the moment, and they're hiring a number of different roles. So I think it's really important because, mark, important that you listen, because Mark gives some some real clues how you should go about connecting. He also give some great clues about the sort of environment that you can anticipate if you should join TopTel. So it'll give you a bit of a head start on anybody else who has not listened to this particular podcast.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

1:56

So, yeah, sit back, enjoy and, you know, as ever, ask questions in the Facebook group as well. I will post a link to the Facebook group. Ask questions if you would like, and enjoy the podcast, and I will speak to you on the other side. Mark, just great to have you on the line today. You know, I think one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you as well because I've been following TopTal for a number of years. I've just been really intrigued at how the business has grown and you know, I've been watching its development and watching it grow. I've been listening to the people talking about how you know they're quite, I suppose, denigrating towards remote businesses and you've obviously made a successful career in the remote space and when I look at your, your linkedin profile and I've done a bit of research on you you've kind of made a obviously a transition and it looks like quite a deliberate transition. If I'm right in saying can you just talk me through, just talk me through your career and how it's shaped up to where you are now?

Mark Bosma

3:06

yeah, and it's. It's funny that you mentioned it because the the landscape, as you say, has has changed, even just during the time that I've been with toptel itself. But my my career progression, if you look at it, you can see that it started out very much on the technical side of things and I went to school, got my Bachelor of Science in Engineering, went actually into the high-performance computing industry for a number of years and then from there transitioned over into doing some SEO, some online marketing sorts of work for a couple of different businesses and marketing sorts of work for a couple of different businesses. And then I got a contact one day out of the blue from the founder of TopTel and that's how that whole progression took place. But the change in roles is kind of an interesting one Because even if you look back at my initial roles out of college, I was in a technical role in the high-performance computing industry.

Mark Bosma

4:11

But when I look back at that now, much of what I spent my time doing was pre-sale support and post-sale support, doing a lot of the work on site with clients.

Mark Bosma

4:25

So when you go and you install a large, expensive computer system for a client on site, you're building client relations while you're there. And so when I look back at my technical work experience, a lot of that was kind of leading into the skills that were needed for me to eventually transition over into a sales capacity. And as I was doing some online marketing work for one particular small business, that also kind of bled over into doing sales for that organization and they realized, hey, this is working out pretty well, we're going to have you keep doing this for that organization. And they realized, hey, this is working out pretty well, we're going to have you keep doing this for a while. And then I of course realized that that was working out pretty well for me and the combination of the technical background and the sales experience is kind of what landed me at TopTel. So it is an interesting progression. But I think if you look around around, you probably find a lot of people in sales who took a similar path yeah, I think so.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

5:30

I agree, because, um, sales is something I know a little bit about myself. I started in sales myself and I've done some recruitment sales actually. So, yeah, it's true, a lot of sales people perhaps transition from an area of technical expertise and take that forward into their sales role. Um, and you as well. You, obviously there's lots of technical um aspects to what what you've done. You mentioned seo. You're a webmaster as well, you. You said, and um, so did you. When you were back there, for example, vans, you worked for vans implement limited as webmaster. Did you have designs on going remote then? Or was that something that just happened entirely by accident?

Mark Bosma

6:17

not particularly. That was kind of the time when I had started branching out into some of the the website work that I was doing and some of the online marketing that I had begun doing at the time and hadn't really thought about going remote. If you look back further back when I was with Atipa and Team HPC doing high performance computing, building Linux clusters, years ago, we actually spent much of our time working with a branch office that we had or working out of a branch office, and again it's one of those things where you look back and realize, oh well, that also lent itself to remote work with our colleagues and other individuals that were at the production facility getting everything racked up, wired and ready so that we could log in remotely and begin working on it. But while we're doing that, we also have to interact back and forth with the people who are there making sure that everything is on track, essentially doing project management remotely. So even that experience is one where you can look back and kind of start connecting the dots with where I landed today.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

7:30

And was it you mentioned? One of the founders called you, was it? Was it Taso Duval?

Mark Bosma

7:35

Taso, yeah, taso. He, yeah, it was. It was interesting. It's one of those, one of those, one of those stories where you get a random contact on LinkedIn out of the blue and he was working, I think, himself in Russia at the time. So the first time I spoke with him, I think it was something like 5 or 6 am in the morning, central Time, us, which was relatively normal working hours for me, because I got up insanely early. I tend to be very much a morning person. So when I said hey, we could talk at 6 am, I was kind of surprised when he came back and said, perfect. Only later did I find out that it was something like 3 pm in the afternoon for him. So it all made sense after I got on the line excellent, excellent, and I know this is when I told.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

8:31

I told a few people. In fact, I emailed my mailing list and did a shout out my Facebook group to say that I was going to be interviewing today and I got got quite a few questions from people who are curious as well about going going remote and, um, it seems like obviously it's a, it's one of those things that I think remote work now is becoming more and more sort of more popular, I guess, and people are trying to figure out ways of doing it. Um, and obviously there's so many, so many benefits and I've experienced it myself for the last few years. Can you, I mean, what benefits have you experienced yourself of being somebody who used to be on site doing technical work to now going remote?

Mark Bosma

9:19

It's an interesting question. I think the really the biggest piece of it that a person notices is that when you are hiring remotely, you can hire the best fit for the role, not just the best person that happens to be within driving distance of your office, right or commuting distance of your office. And if you do it right, you find yourself working with an incredible team of individuals who all have the right skills for the job. They all have the right culture fit the right team, fit for what you're trying to accomplish. You don't have the scenario, which is typical in an office environment, of the individuals that are just kind of there coasting along, the individuals who are there that you just cannot get along with right. Sure sure you tend to avoid that scenario, and then your motivation for showing up every day is just the excitement of working with a team of individuals who help push you as much as you push them, and that, I think, is really the biggest differentiator.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

10:40

And what effect would you say that working?

Mark Bosma

10:42

remote, has had on your life. It's quite a deep question, I know Well, yeah, and it's interesting as well because I've been at TopTel now for almost six years. So in a way, it's a question where I have to kind of peel back the layers, because what seems like normal every day for me is probably dramatically different than what it is for most other people. I think it really does come back to how a person schedules their time and how you prioritize what it is you're working on. Because, on the one hand, you are working from home right, you don't have the commute that most other people have, and it's most people see it as the, the convenience, right.

Remote Work and TopTal Culture

Mark Bosma

11:25

But you also, especially with a family, with kids, you, you do have to make sure that it doesn't bleed over into your personal life to the extent where you end up neglecting all of all of that other aspect of your life. Right, you can't neglect your home life. You can't neglect to get the get, the uh, get the bills paid and make sure that the house stays maintained, for example. A person, a person, can only neglect that for so long before it starts causing problems. So it's it really comes down to ensuring that you have the, the focus on, focus on work when you, when you need to be doing that, and focus on your personal life, uh, and making sure that you're making the most of that when you are.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

12:12

Quote, unquote off, if that makes sense no, I hear you and, um, how do you? I mean, you mentioned that you, you have children yourself. I have children, and that was one thing with me. In fact, when I started working remotely, I didn't have children, but when I had children, it became slightly different in the way I obviously schedule things and balance things out. How do you go about? This is a question I get asked quite a lot. How do you go about managing your work-life balance and integrating that with your family?

Mark Bosma

12:50

the the way that I handle that personally. I've always been kind of a morning person, right. So with that caveat, I tend to start my work day very early. So I'm I usually find myself on my computer at around five or 5 30 AM, Right, and that might sound crazy, but it allows me to get two hours in before my kids are awake and getting ready for school.

Mark Bosma

13:18

So I can knock out a chunk of work in the morning, really, when there isn't even a lot of other distraction going on with Slack etc.

Mark Bosma

13:29

I don't have to worry about that.

Mark Bosma

13:30

I can focus on items that I need to get done for the day which of course is a best practice for most people anyways and then take a break, see my kids off to school, hop back into whatever meetings may have arisen for the day and by the time my kids get home around 3.30, 4 o'clock PM here then by that point in the day, most of my work, most of my meetings, has really been knocked out.

Mark Bosma

13:56

So I can work on just some of the general cleanup of the inbox, cleanup of Slack messages, things of that sort once they're back home, because there is some amount of distraction that's going to occur when you've got more people who are back in the house, of distraction that's going to occur when you've got more people who are back in the house and that, I think, allows a person to have the focus time, the primary chunk of the day, and then also kind of the wind down period at the end, and then around dinner time in the evening everything is pretty much wrapped up and then that's kind of the, I think, kind of the event that pulls me away from the computer and then from there I can focus on family time after that. So a person almost has to schedule your schedule, your time, use some sort of event as the cue to transition from work to family time and balance things that way.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

14:56

That's how it works well for me no, it sounds good, it sounds very familiar to me. Um, and I think that's one thing actually with remote work. What I found I don't know if the same with you mark is that you, yeah, you have to be pretty strict and you have to be pretty um with yourself. That is, um, and really sort of lay things out what, what you're going to do for the, for that particular day, probably a day ahead sometimes, or even, you know, sometimes I even do it even even further back than that. But, yeah, that sounds good, that I think that you think you've answered, um, that guy's question. Like I said, there's lots of questions that came through when I said I was going to be interviewing you, so that's really good. And TopTal itself I want to know. Well, I know about TopTal, but I think there are lots of people out there who don't necessarily know that much about TopTal, even though it's one of the top businesses as far as I'm concerned out there. Tell us about TopTel. Yeah, tell us about TopTel.

Mark Bosma

16:01

TopTel is, at this point, the largest high-skilled workforce or largest remote high-skilled workforce in the world. Essentially, what we provide for our clients is a platform and a service where they can connect with the world's best developers, designers, finance experts, project managers that they might need for the particular roles that they have come up within their company, within their team, and it's a freelance environment where they get to connect with those individuals, work with them in an on-demand nature, so they might have a two-week project, it might be a two-year role or an indefinite role with their company, but it gives the freelancers the ability to connect with great clients. It gives clients the opportunity to connect with great freelancers and to do that in an environment that's essentially pre-vetted, safe, flexible and convenient for both sides, and that's really the environment that we provide for our clients.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

17:15

Well, what I'd say is, if any of this chimes with you, if you're listening hopefully there's somebody out there listening to this podcast, I'm sure there are Go to T-O-P-T-A-Lcom Because, as Mark said, it's you know, when it comes to providing, you know the finance experts, the project managers, the developers there's no better place for you to go if that's your area and that's your area of expertise. So I'd certainly recommend checking out toptelcom and having a look for yourself. But I'm also intrigued to know, because somebody asked me what's it actually like to work within Toptel itself? Mark, how do you find it?

Mark Bosma

18:10

Well, I guess it's going to vary depending on whether a person's coming from an office environment or a remote environment. Right, for somebody who's working in an office environment, the thing that's going to stand out most to them is that our company is entirely distributed, so we're not only connecting our clients with remote freelance talent, but we ourselves are 100% distributed. So that's going to stand out for many people. But the environment itself is one where we're very, very much focused on staying and remaining in hyper growth mode as a company, and that simply means that the day-to-day business, the pace of work here at TopTal is one that just doesn't stop. So it's a lot of driven individuals that are working to build out a team or an entire company of individuals that really resonate with the vision and buy into the vision. You find that you are on on a, on a, on a craft where everybody is rolling in the same direction and they're all rolling hard and you need to keep up.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

19:29

So I think that's one of the other exciting things about working at toptel and obviously the the culture of the business is something that people often put my remote business under the microscope when it comes to, you know, building a culture, sustainable culture, a culture that everybody can really sort of get on board with. And I think one of the things I and one of the ways I um, in fact, the way I connected with Mark originally, was because I read a blog of his where he was talking about the culture of the business and how really to sort of develop that culture that everybody can really sort of get behind and can really sort of the values that everybody you know can really sort of connect with. And, mark, one of the things you said in that article is that, being working within a remote business, the stakes are much higher where culture is is concerned. Can you just just talk me through, talk me through that?

Mark Bosma

20:25

yeah, that's an interesting one, because at a lot of companies, especially small companies, the culture itself develops almost organically around the founders of the company or the founders of a team, right, and the members who are a part of that team are absorbing aspects from the culture.

Mark Bosma

20:48

They can be almost entirely passive about that.

Mark Bosma

20:53

But being in an environment where you're surrounded physically by your other team members and being surrounded by the physical artifacts of what the company is, you're going to absorb the culture, You're going to start to exhibit the culture, regardless of how passive you are.

Mark Bosma

21:11

But when you're in a remote environment, that doesn't happen, right, because you might be sitting in a coffee shop in Europe and that might be your primary spot for working while I might be in my house in the Midwest of the United States. And then you've got others who might be working out of co-working spaces in California, and you have to be intentional about what the culture of that team is from very early on, in order to ensure that all of the individuals who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and who are located in a wide variety of places, all are able to absorb that culture and exhibit that culture themselves, whether they're speaking with clients or whether they are working with each other on the engineering team, or whether they are, in our case, working with talent and helping bring them into our community, vetting them out, right. That's all wrapped up in what we do, but we have to be intentional about it, right.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

22:14

And Top Tail defines culture based on Edgar Sheen, and that's something that you wrote about in the blog as well, and Edgar Sheen is not somebody I've come across before, but I did a little bit of research myself, but I'd be interested to know how you yeah, talk me through that as well, if you could, mark.

Cultivating Remote Work Culture Integration

Mark Bosma

22:38

Edgar Schein's model for culture, I think, is one where you can really get into the details of it and you can look up his work. It's essentially his career is built around organizational culture. Essentially his career is built around organizational culture. But for many people, certainly in the technology space or the startup world, when they think culture, they're thinking of the things that they see, the things that they see around the office, the type of offices. Is it a serious work environment? Is it kind of a fun environment with lots of things going on?

Mark Bosma

23:12

But the reality is that that's really just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, because underneath of those physical artifacts you have the values that a company holds to be true and underneath of that still then you have just the assumptions, the unspoken, underlying assumptions, probably entirely subconscious, that somebody might hold as truths, and those all are the building blocks of the culture itself. And that's going to dictate, essentially the sort of environment environment whether you've got foosball tables in the break room or what it is you might have right, it's. It all is built on top of those values and assumptions that the original founders of the company have, that the company itself has sure, and those you talk about as foosball tables.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

24:10

Obviously you don't have that in a remote working environment.

Mark Bosma

24:14

Well, you can, but not necessarily.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

24:17

Yeah, yeah. So how does that play in practice? I suppose to get people on board and to have them sort of really understand what the business is all about and you know all those things, yeah right.

Mark Bosma

24:42

It comes down to a matter of defining what you want the culture to be, defining what the values of the culture are, instead of having them be entirely unspoken. Those are the sorts of things that you want to begin writing out. You want to have those be items that you talk about in meetings. You want those to be items that are provided to people during their onboarding or maybe even during the interview process. They're onboarding, or maybe even during the interview process, and so you need to make sure that people are able to see them and hear them, but then you also need to make sure that you are living them out in a way that people can see it, and that might come from, for example, if part of your company culture is transparency, then the leaders of the organization need to ensure that they are acting in a transparent way, that they are disclosing information to the team that the team is able to see that. If you want to make sure that the company culture is one that values candid feedback, then you can't just say it, you can't just put it on a virtual poster that people in the company are going to see, but you need to live as a leader in such a way that you are accepting of feedback when you receive it and that you're gracious for the feedback that you get, and that you do that in such a way so that it's not just one-on-one, but perhaps that is the sort of thing that comes up in a small team meeting or maybe even a larger team meeting. But it gives everybody the ability to witness that right and it impresses upon them wow, that's what this means, right, because they can see it and they may not physically be gathered together there, but they can see it.

Mark Bosma

26:36

And it also then adds a little bit of complexity or makes it a little bit tricky to do things like build up the energy and excitement that you might want your culture, your company culture, to really convey to all of the members of the team. But then you need to be able to do that in the way that you communicate in writing to the team has to reflect that leadership presents itself during all hands calls where everybody is joined in, on a given video meeting, for example. But you have to understand that right, if you want to have a company or a company culture that really is energetic and excited. But when you get into a meeting it's just very, very drab business Like you, hit the bullet points and everybody hangs up and goes about their day. It's really going to be hard to bridge that cultural disconnect, that cultural divide. So you have to make sure that there aren't inconsistencies of that sort.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

27:47

Yeah, and it seems I mean I've interviewed a number of um ceos, leaders like yourself from remote business and it sounds, I mean, that the key word I think that kind of embodies this whole thing, or sort of um, yeah, oh, embodies this whole thing is is is being deliberate about how you go about things and being open, being honest, so you can build that sort of atmosphere of trust and cohesiveness. Would that be fair? To actually sum up how you've done that with TopTile yeah, I would agree.

Mark Bosma

28:25

It's really the deliberate aspect that makes a difference and it's critical and required in any remote team companies or remote businesses.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

28:50

They don't all necessarily have that, have those values front and center so people can see them and understand them. They don't necessarily have a culture, a defined culture, so that in many ways makes it probably more difficult for them to actually hire people who can then resonate, connect with that particular business. When you're trying to find people who match that culture, is it, is it better for the hiring managers to be able to spot those people that may fit? Is you know, in the hiring process? And, yeah, is it easier?

Mark Bosma

29:20

it. It's an interesting question because I think it's it's twofold right. On the one hand you're casting a much wider net, so the odds of finding somebody who is a cultural fit are higher right.

Mark Bosma

29:34

But the flip side is that when you are not meeting with somebody face-to-face in your office, surrounding them with your culture, while they are there interviewing at the company, it becomes more difficult to make sure that they really are the fit that you have available to us and also make the best use of your interview strategy essentially your interview questions to help ensure that the person, the candidate, is going to be that cultural fit that you're looking for.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

30:22

Right. So in many yeah, I can get that and I guess as well you're with that volume of resumes and applications from around the world that you're getting, it's perhaps a bit more time consuming to get to that one or two people that you're looking for. Is that the case? Do you get quite a high volume of applicants for each job?

Mark Bosma

30:48

Is that the case? Do you get quite a high volume of applicants for each job? Yeah, there's typically a high volume of applicants that we have for pretty much any role here within the company. Sorry, mark, some additional work spent up front or time spent up front filtering through those to narrow them down and then from there, uh, progressing to the point where you are interviewing them and going through the rest of the process right, and my next question is more about um, like diversity.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

31:23

I interviewed um I think it was nick francis and they have perhaps not necessarily a unique way of ensuring diversity or trying to be as diverse as possible. What they tend to do is they will advertise certain roles in certain, I suppose, online job boards, for example, that target a certain group of people, and they're quite deliberate about the way that they go about attracting from a diverse talent pool. Is that the same for TopTal? Or, yeah, I mean, do you have anything deliberate that you do to, I suppose, to attempt to attract people from as diverse an audience as possible?

Mark Bosma

32:15

The nature of working remotely and pulling in people from across the globe is it's by its nature. It's going to help you a lot on the diversity front, because what you're looking for again is that basic persona right. So you've got the job skills they need to check those boxes and they, for example, if you're looking for somebody who is also intelligent, driven, really good in a conversational environment right. So if they're going to be on a client-facing role, you want them to have all of those soft skills plus some amount of work experience or technical background. And if you're open to people from around the entire globe, you might be speaking with people who are from Europe, eastern Europe, asia, south America and the US. So you're going to get a fairly diverse pool of candidates already and then from there you're looking for the individual that you really feel fits the culture of just the team itself. So there might be some additional considerations that you make to ensure that you don't end up with a completely homogenous mix when you're done. But my experience has been that a lot of the diversity comes along just with the nature of working with people from all around the globe, and I think that the other piece for me that kind of ties in with that is that if you are hiring globally truly hiring globally and if you are also looking at not just the job that you expect that person to do today, but you are also trying to envision what could this person be doing within my team two years, three years down the road?

Mark Bosma

34:06

What is the next evolution and the evolution of that after that going to be for this particular individual, then I think that that also lends itself to building out a team that is more diverse than it otherwise would be, because I'm not just hiring five people.

Mark Bosma

34:22

I'm hiring five people over the course of time, but I'm also keeping an eye on the future.

Mark Bosma

34:27

So I might be hiring somebody who has the skills needed for the current role, but maybe they are an individual who might lend themselves more toward the management side of things. Or maybe this individual might lend themselves more toward the analytical side of things. Maybe that person eventually is going to evolve into a business analyst role within the team, more so than just doing the day-to-day sales work in my context, and that, I think, also helps with the diversity side. But you can still maintain that same high bar of expectations across the board and you don't to compromise it at all on that front. You can still ensure that you're getting an incredibly diverse team men and women from all around the globe and it leads to a very effective functional team, and I think it also makes for an incredible culture within the team itself and it it makes for I suppose it sounds like you have a very, I suppose, thorough hiring process from what you're saying there, because you're obviously not looking just at the here and now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

35:39

You're looking at the future and trying to understand candidates not just from what they can do do, but they're also also their potential. And I think that's where a lot of people fall down is when they're hiring that is anyway is that they're perhaps, you know, perhaps sometimes it's a bit of a knee-jerk response to um, a role needing to be filled, and they probably underestimate how long it might take. And then they get somebody in because they just want somebody to be there to sort of fill, fill the void. But it sounds like this this is very, very thorough, it looks into the future and I think that also is reassuring.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

36:16

I mean, if anybody is looking for a role at the moment I'm going to ask Mark about roles at the moment but if you are looking for a role at the moment, I think if you're working for somebody, this is the kind of employer that you want to work for, or if you're a freelancer or an employed worker, because they're not just thinking about the here and now, they're thinking about how you can develop, how your career path can develop, and I'm sure that nobody, when they take a new role, role, nobody's going to want to just stand still. They want to to know that the the person they're working for, has their best interests at heart in terms of their trajectory, their career trajectory, so that that sounds really good. Um and mark um again, a lot of interviews I've done. Um, certain hiring managers might pick from a pool of entrepreneurs. Some people like to hire people who perhaps were former entrepreneurs, or others might hire people who are working within a business. Is there any particular preference where TopTal is concerned or, again, is it pretty diverse?

Mark Bosma

37:26

It's pretty diverse. It's going to depend a little bit on the particulars of the role. So within my own team, I might be hiring somebody who has a very technical background but is really incredibly good with people. On the flip side, I might be hiring somebody who comes from a sales background in a specific environment and has that skill set, but they also have quite an aptitude toward app development or technology. In an overall sense, they're both able to arrive at the same spot essentially in their in their career, in their skill development that they're able to tackle the need that I have on my team Right. And I like to keep a bit of an open mind when we're, when we are looking for folks, because sometimes it's surprising where you find the individual that really turns out to be the best fit in that regard.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

38:31

And do you have any sort of? I mean, given that you've I'm sure you've hired quite a lot in the past, and that's what TopTal is all about, I guess, isn't it Hiring the right people for the right roles, whether that be the people that work within TopTal or those that work for clients, that serve clients as well? Do you also have an inkling or, I suppose, an idea or an understanding of people who might be good for want of a better word when it comes to working remotely?

Remote Work Productivity and Self-Discipline

Mark Bosma

39:06

I think that that's one of those things that comes out during the interview process and for everybody out there, it is one of those things that you do need to keep in mind, right? If you find a candidate who has a successful track record of working remotely, that's really helpful, because there are some individuals who just they personally don't prefer it, but they might not realize that until they've gone a fair bit down the road and then they find themselves wanting to turn around and go back, right, and I think it's important to make sure that you are bringing that up, that you're asking about it, that you might drill into that specifically during the interview process, looking at their work. History is going to give you, obviously, some of that. But then another piece to it which I'm a big fan of is just the idea of when you're asking interviews or asking questions during the interview process.

Mark Bosma

40:09

Asking interviews or asking questions during the interview process, ask questions that are going to serve a dual purpose, right? So if you're asking a question about how they would handle a certain scenario, you might be looking for the answer, just the basic, surface level answer to the question, but the response might also clue you into some aspect of their personality that lets you know is this person really self-directed? Because if we're going to be remote, they need to be self-directed, because you're not going to be there looking over their shoulder. Sure, right, and that takes a little bit of work and it takes a little bit of practice, but you can come up with a lot of questions that you ask during the interview process that are going to lead you in that direction.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

40:50

Right. Yeah, it's very different, isn't it working remotely to working in an office? And for me, when I first started working remotely, it was not having somebody to necessarily look over my shoulder and being responsible and being trusted and all those sorts of things. But, yeah, I think you have to be geared towards it, wouldn't you say, mark, to be working remotely? Yeah.

Mark Bosma

41:25

I would agree with that. Yeah, a person has to be wired right at the right time in their life to really make the most of it, and for some people, it might mean that they're at a time in their life where they just really want to be working in an office environment where they're surrounded by other people. That same person five years down the road might absolutely thrive in a remote environment, and it might oscillate back and forth depending on who the person is, but they certainly have to understand what it is they're getting themselves into. And back to, I think, something that you and I talked about earlier the discipline that a person has to have, and you need to make sure that you have that, and companies need to make sure that they're looking for that when they're bringing people on board.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

42:16

Sure, and what the discipline is is a big thing.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

42:21

And again I got to. I have to admit that when I, when I first started working remotely it's going back to 2008, 2009, I always I don't know about you, mark, but I always had this temptation once I'd finished my lunch, I would wash the dishes and that sort of thing, or, you know, I'd put a load of washing in or things like that, and I quickly realised how quickly the day, the day go, the time just goes so quickly. So I obviously quickly stopped all of that and just sort of focused on on doing the things that needed to be done. But it is that discipline, isn't it? It's that and it's getting used to, to sort of getting yourself into a frame of mind, or having the frame of mind, at least, where you know you, you, you set yourself your tasks to be done, you, you get them done, and then, once those tasks are done, you can then do the other sort of more recreational things that you can do, and so sort of separating those two things. Um, completely right.

Mark Bosma

43:22

Right and it's. It's interesting because you can look at all of the Right and it's interesting because you can look at all of the different blogs, the books, all of the efficiency items, knocking the big priority items off when you're in your prime, understanding what time of day that is, and then making sure that you are working on maybe some of just the lesser items, the administrative items, when you're kind of at a lull in your personal productivity cycle. And when you are working from home. That's doubly important because you have all of the distractions without all of the uh, perhaps the, the, the social pressure of eyes that are watching you. Right, if a person was, if a person was to be in the office, uh, as much, as as much as their colleagues might appreciate it if they wash up all of the dishes in the break room, if a person was to do that every single day, it might begin to be something that they would get a hard time for Exactly yeah.

Mark Bosma

44:35

Yeah, but when you are in the home environment, if you're working out of a home office, yeah, you need to make sure that you don't fall into that trap, and I think it really comes down to just having a schedule that you lay out for yourself. And then also, again, if you work in an environment that's incredibly driven and you wake up in the morning and you look at your calendar and your day is basically carved out for you. You're going to be working and you're going to be just going from one thing to the next all day. Pretty quick. You look at the clock and you realize it's 5 pm, 6 pm, like ah, wow, where's the day gone? It's, yeah, it's been. It's been three hours since I've looked up from my computer to see what's going on around me, sort of thing, and that is equally possible. But a person just needs to make sure that they that they have the discipline that can get them into a routine.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

45:28

And once you've got a bit of a routine, it's much, much easier to maintain and actually another aspect of that discipline mark that I, again, I struggle with at the very beginning was working too much. So there were times when I would kind of sit down at my computer for like hours and hours on end and not get up or not stretch, or there was times when I'd even I don't know, you know, would miss sort of just doing. You know, I'd have a quick lunch and perhaps I'd probably work too long and I just didn't have a day. Sort of that was structured. Do you have any sort of like?

Alex Wilson-Campbell

46:08

I mean, one thing that I do or well, again, I used to do this before I sort of got into my routines was, and this was something that, um, so a piece of advice that was given to me by a wellness coach is that, because I struggled with just sort of just sitting at my computer and just working through without a break or without stretching, I would leave a red dot on my computer and that kind of well, he said it would remind you to get up and do something or get up and stretch, or get a drink of water or whatever it may be. Do you have anything like that yourself, any sort of hacks, hacks for sort of you know being as productive as possible but at the same time looking after your own sort of self, I guess.

Mark Bosma

46:56

It's going to. It's going to vary depending on the person right. Some people might resort to a techno, a technological solution to this, and they might get a Pomodoro timer app on their phone or something like that that reminds them to get up and stretch something along those lines. But I think it's also effective to just look at the base human needs and use that as one of the cues or the triggers that a person can use to remind themselves ah yes, I'm supposed to go eat or ah, yes, I should get up and stretch. And, for example, one of those would be my own office is in a downstairs room of the house. I don't keep my food and my snacks for the day in the office.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

47:47

I keep them upstairs.

Mark Bosma

47:48

So at a minimum, at a minimum, I find myself having to at least get up and go up the steps and around and move around a little bit to go get a drink right, to go refill my water bottle or to get a snack or to have lunch or something like that.

Mark Bosma

48:06

Those things, I think, do make a difference. And then from there, depending on the person, again, it might be a scenario where you can go about scheduling coffee meetings with friends or former colleagues right, where you're going to get up and you're going to go meet somebody, and that gives you a specific time on the calendar where you are going to be up and moving around and you have something to do. But it is important because, as you mentioned, if you work from home and you do it for years and you're sitting at your computer for years, you will eventually end up in a scenario where you are just kind of a crumpled husk of a person and you can't. You can't stand up or bend over without pain in your back. But that again, I think is everybody solves it a little bit differently. I I eventually ended up getting a treadmill desk, so that helps a treadmill desk wow, yep, yep and it's, and it's really good.

Mark Bosma

49:07

If a person finds themselves in hours of meetings every single day, you can pretty easily multitask walking on a treadmill while you are in hours of meetings. It's effective, right? So the little things that a person can do like that that help kind of provide dual purpose for a given window of time in the day, are good for that as well yeah, so it's an interesting point as well as setting up your office in the right way so that you can be as productive as possible.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

49:37

I mean, I got an, an ergonomic chair, to sort of make sure my back is, uh, as straight as possible, so that, yeah, the the um, your idea sounds interesting. Maybe I'll get one of those as well. It sounds good, excellent.

Mark Bosma

49:52

There you go.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

49:53

Well, mark, it's been great. I've got just one last question for you, because one question I get asked a lot. I mean, there are a number of people looking for remote opportunities and I think and I always say this, you know, it's not about looking for a remote opportunity, it's about looking or about finding and connecting with a business, with a culture, with the values of the business that align, or at least are closely aligned, with your own. That's what it's all about, first and foremost. But with that in mind, mark, is TopTal hiring any roles at the moment, any interesting roles at the moment?

Mark Bosma

50:35

Always. Yeah always, if you go to our careers page on the website, you're going to find a very large list of the roles that we're looking for, but pretty much every department in the organization is growing and expanding at this point in time, so I would certainly encourage your listeners to go and check that out.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

50:57

Excellent. Yeah, I would. I would say so, and what I'll do in the show notes I'm going to leave a link to the careers page so you can have a look. But what I'd say in any case is, before you even apply or think about applying to any of the roles is look at the blog, look at the you know, the about us page, understand the business, look at the profiles of some of the people who who work there, some of the senior figures, some of the people who are maybe not senior figures, but just really get a deep understanding of the business, because it's so important to get some sort of connection. Establish some sort of connection, or at least feel as though you have some sort of connection before you apply, because if you don't, it will be so obvious to somebody like Mark you know. So, mark, I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. It's been. It's been really interesting to to learn a lot more um what? What does the future look like for you and your team?

Mark Bosma

51:58

I. Future for us is going to be continued growth. So we've got a busy roadmap ahead already for the year, with additional plans that are still in the works. So we've got a busy roadmap ahead already for the year, with additional plans that are still in the works. So we've got exciting things ahead, a lot of work, but also just a lot of excitement and achievements that we're going to be able to knock out as a team. So, looking forward to the rest of this year and beyond.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

52:24

Well, I'll be keeping an eye on top towel, that is for sure. Uh, mark, and thank you so much again, and you know I'll um share share this with with the group and, like I said, go to top towelcom that's T O P T? A Lcom and have a good look at the website and and see what you think. I'm sure there'll be something there for you If you decide. You don't necessarily want to apply for a role, but I'd encourage you to do that. But there'll be a lot of things that you can learn about remote, because TopTal is one of the best, if not the best, at what they do and being a remote business. So have a look at toptelcom everybody, mark. Once again, thank you for your time, alex thank you.

Remote Work Community Building

Alex Wilson-Campbell

53:14

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did my interview there with VP of Sales for Toptel, mark Bosma, and what I'm going to do, as promised, is leave a link for you to have a look at their career section, because they're hiring across the board at the moment, so there may be opportunities there that suit you. They're hiring within their business operations marketing, sales people, communications, just a name a few, just to name a few departments. So certainly worth having a look. And, as I mentioned during the, the actual show itself, you want to make sure that TopTal is a good fit for you before you dive into your application, just make sure you research the website and the business inside out. And, on another note, I mean TopTal are also hiring, or they hire freelance talent as well. So if you have a look at their homepage too, you'll see that they hire developers, designers, project managers, finance experts, product managers to serve the clients that they have on their books. So certainly worth having a look at toptelcom, the other thing I'd urge you to do as well.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

54:23

Again, in the show notes, I'm going to leave a link to our Facebook group so you can join in the conversation and ask questions about the show or ask questions relating you have questions to. To ask that you can. You can talk to somebody or ask the question and eventually somebody will answer it for you, and just to have somebody to talk to as well. You know, one thing that a number of remote workers say is that they they lack that community, they lack communication and they lack the ability just to sort of ask questions. So I hope the facebook group in some way can contribute towards that. So check out the link in the show notes and ask any questions that you would like to ask. I will see you on another episode of the Remote Work Live podcast and thank you for joining me.