The Evolution of QPC Group: Insights from Lisa Spark

Lisa: if I can give any piece of advice that anyone can take away, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, the rule of thumb in photocopiers or printers is the more you invest in that piece of machinery, the less it will cost you to run.

Carmen: Hey everyone, this is Carmen Durvad, and I will be hosting today's episode of Behind the Founders. Joining me here today is Lisa Spark. Lisa, welcome. Can you introduce yourself?

Lisa: Thank you so much for having me on here, Carmen. My name's Lisa Spark. I'm co-founder of QPC Group. We are an office technology company specializing in managed print services, VoIP phone systems, and other tech for your office.

Carmen: Great. Thank you so much for the very lovely introduction, Lisa. So what inspired you to found QPC Group? Could you take us a little bit on your journey of what got you started and how you built this company?

Lisa: Sure. Well, I've got quite the background in marketing and management. Always knew I'd run my own business. my I suppose husband now, but you know, partner at the time, was r running a family business and in a similar industry to what we're in now, not not not exactly the same. but mum got ill and I kind of stepped in to help the business move forward. long story short, that business had other plans and we needed to move on from there. And it had to kind of wind down. mum had passed away, etc. So we started our own business as quality printer cartridges, remanufacturing printer cartridges 18 years ago, you know, back in 2008. and that's really how we we fell into this business. It was kind of not a conscious decision. It was something that kinda had just happened and we had to kind of quite think quite quickly on our feet.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah, great. Yeah, I think sometimes that's a lot of things just happen by chance. Something is obviously not planned. There's a lot of plot twists coming in the way, which brings you, of course, to where you are as well. Yeah, Lisa, so I am actually going through your LinkedIn profile. And yeah, I see that you have quite a a mixed background of, you know, you were a marketing manager, account manager, you also worked in the call center, and then you also did a little bit of traveling. So could you take us little bit on your journey about going through all of these different roles? What what did you learn out of it to get to where you are?

Lisa: yeah, so I didn't really have too many roles before I started my own business. I started you know, well, QPC group as it is known as now when I was twenty seven. I didn't finish university till I was twenty-one. So by the time I kind of got out of uni, did a a year and a half of some account managing, I actually left and traveled the world for two years. and and literally traveled the world. I didn't work or anything. So when I got back, you know, I was twenty five years old. I helped market jet set travel and then also helped in my partner's business and then from there it went straight into my own business. So there wasn't really too much r when you kind of look back at it, you know, in terms of experience, but funny enough, when we were travelling we s lived in Whistler, Canada and snowboarded and did a whole season there for six months. But at

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: the age of twenty four I did start a business over there, website over there, and started a business of helping people know how to migrate to Canada and become like you know, like a visitor and what they needed to know. So back I suppose you when you kinda look back at it all how entrepreneurial everything kind of was while I was traveling, I was doing business stuff and creating things and you know, I created a website that would only have you know, things that I anything that I had tried I would give a personal opinion on. So, you know, lots of hotels and activities would give me free stuff to review them on.

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: so yeah, didn't really kind of probably realize it at the time. how entrepreneurial I was at 24. But you know, a lot of that stuff helped me through you know, traveling and and doing all that fun stuff. So I always knew I'd run my own business. Probably wasn't too sure exactly what it would be, but when the opportunity came up of what are we going to do now? And we're like, let's do this ourselves and lo and behold, you know, I'm still here doing it.

Carmen: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I'm just curious, right? Because you know, when it comes when you were like spending, you know, the past or the two years you were traveling, you were in Canada. obviously there's something really powerful when it comes to traveling, seeing the world through different sets of lenses. I can personally relate as well because I've also lived abroad in different countries. What was something that you learned about yourself in that journey?

Lisa: traveling I think is probably the best thing anyone can do in their lives. I still travel every three months somewhere in a country.

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: still to this day and I'm now forty six. So I think travel is completely changes you and makes you aware of how other people live, how other people's cultures are, understanding other people's model of the world, which is really important when you're running a business because When you run a business, you've got so many diverse customers and they're not

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: all thinking the same way as you. They've all got different things happening in their lives. You're dealing with different nationalities and cultures. and it's really important to understand each one of those and tailor your solution or have an understanding of maybe why they're asking so many questions or why they just don't respond, or, you know, th there's just so many elements to cultures and how you interact with them, that makes you a better business person because you really need to understand people to be able to know how your product or service can relate to them. yeah, I mean travel travel's been I I think everyone should have some sort of travel, not a holiday travel, but to learn the cultures and experience them.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely for sure. And I think there's also something I would say like really humbling about that experience because you really get to understand that there is more than one way of communicating, that there's no like right or wrong as well, that it's just simple

Lisa: Mm.

Carmen: different and it also really helps to like bridge and also like navigate different conflicts and everything like that as well. Okay, great.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Carmen: So yeah, obviously I see that, you know, you mentioned that you were already really early on you were starting your entrepreneurship journey and that's pretty much like dominating most of your life and you know you've been running QPC group for quite a long time for almost 20 years. I'd love to know because it has been quite a journey, how has it evolved into what it is today? What what was it like at the beginning? What were the early challenges and how how is it going with QPC right now?

Lisa: Yeah, so we started as a remanufacturing company. So we remanufactured all your printer cartridges that go into your photocopies and printers. And that's all we really did. and then we evolved into actually selling the printers then that the cartridges go into and then evolving from that, which you know, you small kind of printers that sit on your desktop and then know, we noticed people were buying these large A three photocopies, which if you're on video you can see behind me there's a large A three photocopier behind me there.

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: And they're the types of machines that are under contract. people kind of get toners for free and you charge per click and it was this contractual model. So because we we were not in that space, you know, it was very foreign to us, but when we realized what this other world was, there's, you know, when you're in proper managed print and you're a dealer of a certain brand, you know, you get access to models that, you know, y you can't find online. They're not in your general retail stores. and cartridges, you know, for a dealer is obviously at a special price because we've got to manage the whole machine for you. So this world of of was foreign to us 'cause we'd never been exposed to it. So working out how how it was, no No manufacturer wanted didn't know who we were. We, you know,

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: were quite young. The dealerships have already been taken care of. They already had their companies that they already distributed their dealerships to. So we actually ended up creating creating our own managed print services. So we we created our our own. We we ended up providing X Lease machines to clients and we because we remanufacture cartridges, we manufactured our own cartridge and then gave it to the client. So we actually ended up being the manufacturer ourselves. and then once we actually got some really good traction with it, then dealers and you know brands and vendors started to approach us to go, Well hey, you know what, why don't you sell our product? And we're like, okay, yes, this makes sense. And yes, It was much easier doing someone else's product than managing it all yourself. Like we were the we were literally the manufacturer. So,

Carmen: So

Lisa: you know, y when we look back at it, it was very entrepreneurial that we took that on and had to be forward thinking and taking that on rather than just twiddling our thumbs going, Well, no one will give us a dealership and and you know, winge, winge, wind. We just did it ourselves. So, you know, fast forward, You know, we our our original name was actually quality printer cartridges because we're like, Well, that's what we do. We sell quality printer cartridges.

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: And then we re realized people were buying printers and then calling us saying I need a cartridge for our printer. We're like, Hold on a minute, people think we don't sell printers. So we'll let's put an and in the name, quality printers and cartridges. And then as we kept moving on, people like, I don't need your printers or cartridges anymore. I've got a photocopy, and we're like, We do photocopiers too. So we're like, yeah, our name is pigeonholing us. It's it's people don't think we even do photocopiers now. So we had to scrap the whole name. We rebranded as QPC Group and in two thousand and nineteen, actually before COVID, we're like, not only are we gonna rebrand so we wipe out the name we're also going to rebrand that we do full office technology. So we would go in and you know, these photocopies behind us, as brilliant as they are, you've still got IT connecting into it. So the photocopier

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: will work, but the IT connected to it doesn't. So when someone says my printer doesn't work, we would diagnose and go, Well, the printer actually does work. It's the IT that's sending the link through to it that doesn't work. And that's actually not a problem of the photocopier, that's now your IT. So we would we would always provide free IT basically to people and fix the problem because we didn't want to have a bad name on our own photocopiers because because if you can't print from your computer, they think it's our fault that they can't print, even though it's not related to the photocopier. So, long story short, we're like, you know what, we're actually doing all this free IT, we should be charging for it. We really do IT anyway. So we rebranded as QPC Group six months prior to COVID, managed print services, IT, void phone systems,

Carmen: Okay.

Lisa: video conferencing, and 3D printers. So we're like, we are now a full tech, we we sell it all, but our name doesn't show that we sell it all. So that's

Carmen: okay.

Lisa: how QPC Group was born. And from there it's obviously skyrocketed into all these different technologies and cross pollinating our clients of hey, you might have managed print with us, well why don't you do a phone system? So that's pr pretty much been the journey of QPC group.

Carmen: Okay. Yeah, because I was actually about to ask, right? Because you know, like from our conversations, you know, the it seemed like, you know, the first, I would say like the first stage or the first phase of of QBC Group was mainly focusing on, you know, you know, printers, cartridges, and everything like that. And I was actually going to ask, you know, how did the other different systems come into play? For an example, the VOIP systems and everything like that, but it's really It's really interesting to see how much your company has evolved from rebranding, changing the name, also the different services you've offered. And it's really expanded into so many different segments as well. And I can imagine that everything that you mentioned, everything comes down to optimizing or improving the automation of systemization and efficiency for all of these different office tools as well, which is obviously. quite an important need, especially because right now we are in the really digital, digitalization era as well. So just as like a follow-up question in terms of like the different clients, what kind of clients are you working with? How many clients are you currently partnering up with or providing the services to?

Lisa: Sure. So we kind of you know, we basically say, you know, we're small small to medium businesses, but to to be honest with you, like when you look at our portfolio of clients, it really does span from a one man band literally right up to international global companies. So it's it's actually very difficult to say, you know, these are the people we serve. I think where our sweet spot is though, to be honest with you, is the businesses that have the larger businesses is really where our sweet spot is. Medium medium to large is probably where we offer the most value because clients who's got multiple locations, so we do Australia and New Zealand. So clients who've got multiple locations around both areas, and or just larger organizations, we find them probably to be the most disorganized when it comes to managed print services and even a phone system as well. So if I focus on managed print, they find that, you know, if they're in Perth, Australia, they'll have one supply. If they're in Melbourne, they've got another supplier. In New Zealand, they've got another supplier. They've got a supplier in every different state. Now in managed print, not it's not necessarily that every supplier actually can has the network to be able to supply ever all their all their locations Australia wide. So it's not uncommon for them to have to go state to state and get it get an individual supplier. Whereas we do have the ability to serve absolutely every nook and cranny in Australia and New Zealand. So that's been a core strength

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: of ours is cl clients who have multiple locations can have one supplier, i.e. us, and then we manage all the locations, whether it's five locations or five hundred or five thousand locations, we've got the infrastructure and the ability to be able to do that. and then I find even global location you know organizations who have branches here I do find them to be quite they can be quite disorganized, they don't have automation. And every time I go in, the larger the organization actually generally the worse it is. And I and Really, where I think you know, my DNA looks at something. It's like I'm an internal computer and I look at it and just go, Wow, I can so I can visually clean this up logistically and go, You're ordering these toners from who and where and how? And I'm like, man, that is so messy. If you just install our monitoring system, it'll all just be done automatically and you don't have to do anything. And I'm just like, Wow, how are you guys doing this so manual? across how many locations? So sometimes print's the last thing on their mind, but it's the most critical thing in the business. And I know lots of people say, I don't use my printer or I'm going paperless. But you

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: know what, Carmen? The amount of people that say that to me and then when the printer stops working and they call saying I need my printer urgently, I if I had a dollar for every time I said that, I wouldn't have to be on a podcast. I wouldn't even be

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: here. I'd be retired.

Carmen: Yes,

Lisa: Because

Carmen: wow.

Lisa: they when the print the it's all it's always okay when the printer works, but when it doesn't, then they realise how much they really do need it. And

Carmen: Yeah, that's when they see the new yeah, yeah.

Lisa: yeah, yeah. The only time people don't need a printer is when you truly have a paperless office and you don't even have the machine in your office, well then you are truly paperless. But at that time, everyone's always like, I need my printer to work now. It's like, I thought you said you the paperless office. So that so our sweet spot really is. I say small I say small to medium, but a as as we keep growing and moving along, I find it's more medium to large. And that's really where I think our expertise really adds so much more value to these companies because it really does tighten up, automate remove a headache from them and simplify with one supply and one agreement.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely for sure. Yeah. I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that, you know, when they say, we don't really need a printer, it's not that important, but the minute it stops working, that's when they realize they come back to you. And that's where you'll obviously come in to be able to resolve. And I think it just goes to show that sometimes there's just a lot of things, whether it's like different elements of the business that we kind of oversee or maybe we even take for granted as well. And it's like you never know. How crucial it is until it's no longer there as well. So that's just something that just came up to me as well. Yeah, actually, I was going to ask you as like a follow-up question about all these different scaled or different varieties of businesses that you worked with. I would say you kind of answered that question, but I would love to know, you know, from your observation, what would you say is some of the biggest operational mistakes you see in maybe like to small or growing businesses that they make when it comes to like technology or systems and processes and so on.

Lisa: think if I relate it back to managed print services, I feel like it's a constant educational piece. So we've got you know, in Australia we've got retail places like Officeworks, you know, JB Hi Fi, you know, and I'm sure in every other country you've got a a different version and COS and you know, wh whatever it is gonna be. People think that that's where you go buy a printer from and that's where you go buy your cartridges from. And we're not actually allowed to display we're allowed to display our product online, but we're not out we're not actually allowed to display the price. So it really is our the photocopiers that we provide, which is behind me, you know, it's a very closed network. So it's a little bit like you don't you don't you know, is it you don't know what you don't know. And there's there's Daily conversations we have with clients where they go, I've got this small printer, and I'm like, man, that's the most expensive printer you could run. And then I talk to them about managed print. They've never heard the words before. They don't know what a copy cost per copy is. They don't know what a click charge is. Like it's a whole foreign language, a foreign world to them. So, you know, weekly I'm like, man, there's there's just so many people that don't even know this world even exists. And they think going to to a retail store Buying a small printer and then paying for cartridges is actually the most we're just what you do. So we're constantly educating them and and if I can give any piece of advice that anyone can take away, does it doesn't matter where you are in the world, the rule of thumb in photocopiers or printers is the more you invest in that piece of machinery, the less it will cost you to run.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: So if you go and to a retail store and pay for a two hundred dollar machine, your cartridges to replace it will probably be four hundred dollars. It'll be more than the actual printer itself. And lots of people say that, the cartridges cost more than printer. And I'm like, yes, it does. The cheaper you go, the more expensive it is to run. Then you'll

Carmen: Run the cars.

Lisa: come to us where, you know, a machine, the lowest machine could be, you know, six thousand dollars. but you're paying half a cent to run the machine. So when you actually have a look and a and talk about total cost of ownership, it they will save thousands of dollars by moving to a managed print machine, a commercial machine, over a small desktop. So

Carmen: transmission, yeah.

Lisa: And the reason I know this is because we remanufactured cartridges for the small desktops. So we know how much we sell them for. We know we we service these machines. We know how much the parts are. So it almost kills us when we have to say to someone, listen, that drum's gonna cost six hundred dollars. They're like, But the machine only cost me 300. I'm like, I know, I wouldn't

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: repair it. You should go with another machine. But the thing is. Some people don't can't understand it, they can't justify it. and sometimes it can be a hard decision for them to invest in a large machine when all they've known is small retail machines. so they they're basically transactional machines in your retail stores and they move to contractual when they're with us. But but when you move to a managed print service, it is pays you back dividends for years. Yeah.

Carmen: Yeah, I think it's definitely important to obviously look at the bigger picture as well. And actually, as you were talking, it got me thinking about this. that there's this quote in Spanish. I don't know it word for word, but it's something about like sometimes the cheapest thing you invest in ends up being the most expensive thing because there's a lot of other different elements that you have to consider as well. So yeah, I think that's obviously part of it is obviously like you would have to Kind of act as a consultant to your clients as well to advise them, you know, on the best options that they have and also the other things you have to consider. That it's just, you know, there's also the piece of investing in the cartridges as well as the different printer options as well. So definitely a really important part of the business as well. so Lisa, I'd like to shift the topic around more about the operational aspect, right? So I can imagine within the 18 years, you probably evolved a lot as a team. Can you walk Us through your team setup. Where are they based? Are they remote or are they all based in Australia? What does the team setup look like?

Lisa: Sure. So the core team is based in Perth, like out of, you know, if I could if I say headquarters, that's where we the core team are. And there's you know, and then because we work Australian, New Zealand wide, you know, we use network of people in every single place in Australia and ne in New Zealand. So they're not my employees, but they certainly are part of my network. and yes, and we do definitely have some remote people to you know to do certain things like marketing or lead gen, sales support, but really the the the brains and the core of the business is people within Perth, Western Australia. and you know, we started with five people when we first actually opened the doors, which is quite a lot of people when you got zero customers, but we knew We knew what we wanted to do, we knew what we needed to do to get there. and we knew that my husband and I could not be in the day to day running of the business 'cause you can't be in the trenches when you are when you're trying to run a business and grow it. If you're stuck in the day to day operations in it, you're really it's actually very hard to get out of it. So The business was always designed for us not to be in the trenches. It was designed actually for us to be able to travel and be at home with kids, you know, when we have them, et cetera, and to have have a good lifestyle, which is can be quite rare to find as I've been getting older and talking to more business owners. because we created that from the start, it's kind of our normal. But when I talk to other business owners, it doesn't actually seem to be the normal. And then normally is they can't even get a holiday or a break or a week off where I'm away every I'm away every three months.

Carmen: Yeah. Always for stuff. Mm-hmm.

Lisa: Yeah, so you know, I'm actually quite quite proud of that. As I'm getting older, I I realise how actually rare that is. so my my advice to anyone who's starting a business is to not start yourself in the trenches. And you know, if you need to get a loan out to employ more people to make sure you start off the right foot, it's probably gonna work be worth

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: every penny to make sure that it starts on the right foot. So yeah, we started with five. you know, and we fluctuated up to 15, we're back down to 10. But you remember 10's my core. I've still got I've still got tons of people outside of my core team. You know, we actually have we actually employ an entire company to run up all my machines and deploy them. So it's about having scalab scalability. and you know these that that whole company that runs up my machines and installs is in Perth. So I could employ more people, but I rather employ a whole company. so we're always thinking about scalability, how can we keep adding more customers onto our into what into our business and you know, realistically probably don't really need to employ more people because the sharper you can get with the operations, the more smarter you can get, the more, you know, outsourcing you can do, the more scalability you can do, the the more you can help and serve people. and and and that's kind of our mindset. And that's that's been the evolution of us going from, you know, five for fifteen back down to ten core people, but we've got such a beautiful network. You know, if you if you added up all the people that work for us, it would be a lot.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can imagine as well. And obviously I think it is really important what you mentioned that the operational piece is often it shouldn't be overlooked because that is when you can really focus on your other priorities. Otherwise, as mentioned, right, you mentioned that a lot of business owners they would get stuck. Work never leaves them. They're always they never have the chance to go on holiday or spend time with the loved ones, which is which shouldn't be the case as well, because you do want to be able to structure your work around your life as well. So that way you're you have be able to enjoy life or enjoy the fruits that you bear as well.

Lisa: Mm.

Carmen: so you mentioned that you also have some people working remotely. Are they based in Australia or where are they located?

Lisa: so no, yeah. So I've got my my web developers in India. I've got my marketing girl, she was South African, she moved to Spain. I've just recently hired a f a couple of Filipinos to do some lead gen and sales support. an Australian that just moved back to India to do some lead gen. so yeah, you know, like I think because I've tried traveled the world.

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: And I travel still so much now that I work kind of, you know, if I'm on a holiday, I'll pretty much be on my holiday, but if I have to log in and check something or help with something, I mean we're a technology company, so you know, realistically, do I does anyone need to be in the office? No, they don't. and it'd be a bit naive of me to think that I I need to keep everyone only in Australia. And and this and the reason why I've actually moved outside of Australia is because I actually just can't find anyone in Australia that will A do the job, B apply for the job. so I've actually had to be a little bit resourceful and go, well, I'm just gonna have to wide widen my net a little bit, and I'm gonna have to be a little bit more open minded with having to hire remote workers. That probably wasn't my initial thought. but when I kind of sat down, I went, Well, you know what? what's the difference between working in another country to working if Australian wants to work from home? It's actually no different. so it's it's my core team are my core team and I'm never going to replace them. It's just adding more support actually onto them. It's like how do we support them more? and make sure that my core team in Australia are dealing with the I suppose I always say there's rocks and sand in the business. Sand is the things that make you busy. Rocks are the things that make you productive. And I

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: want my team in Australia to be dealing with rocks and my remote team to be doing all the sand work.

Carmen: that is a very lovely illustration. I love the analogy that you brought up with the rocks and the sand as well. So I just wanted to ask, you mentioned that you decided to expand your team and find remote workers outside of Australia because you couldn't find the people in Australia to do the specific roles or functions that you were looking for. What kind of roles or functions would that be that the Australians are not so keen on doing?

Lisa: so just pure just pure lead generation. Just want someone to be cold calling all the time. that's that's a really, really big one. to find someone who wants to do that all the time. You know and and listen, to be a salesperson, you have to be a pretty special person. Like they're a bit of a special breed. To be doing that over and over and over again all day, like you've really gotta yeah, you've got to

Carmen: Yeah, the rocket should

Lisa: have a special gene about you. so they can be quite hard to find. And I find that they're just getting a little bit harder to find right now. and I've always got an ad up looking for a local, but there's not too many replies. So unfortunately, you know, I always say the business will have to still keep running. The you know, the show's gotta keep going on and we've got to keep having people on stage and hence why I've had to look elsewhere and outsource, you know, even to a point where I had to replace a technician. You know, it took me three months to find an actual pr technician, a printer tech. And there was a there was a very big chance there that we had to get someone on a four, five, seven visa to come in. I was like, you know what, we might actually have to pull the pin and sponsor someone because we couldn't get anyone to apply. Couldn't you it just unfortunately, you know, what do we do? The jobs are up there. We're happy to employ locals and if no one's applying, you know, we've got to serve our clients and we've got to make sure that we keep we've got to keep going. So that's what made us look elsewhere. So yeah, lead gen and also we've got sales support as well, to help the the sir the sales team in terms of just support. just doing it's just doing all that back end stuff that takes time, that

Carmen: Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa: really someone else can do and and the core team, like I said, can deal with the rocks and we can have

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: other people deal with the sand.

Carmen: Deal with the sand. Yeah. Especially when it comes to the elements about sales or any any part of the funnel as well, that which is often quite a important piece that's often overlooked as well. And how did you go about finding the remote based people? Do you use any offshore staffing services? Or what has your experience been like? How did you approach and find these people that you're working with today?

Lisa: Well, interesting enough, the c a couple of people actually applied to my Australian ad. So when I was up looking, yeah, I had a local ad art and it was

Carmen: checking. Yeah.

Lisa: them, they applied from outside of a country. And

Carmen: okay.

Lisa: yeah, so I was like, Okay, you know what? I might look at this. So it was very interesting. and that's kind of what turned me a little bit to go Hmm, okay. I'm open to looking at it. I'm hoping to do I'm I I'm always Carmen, you know, I think when you're in business you've always got to be open to try things. And if you

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: you know, we've always got to be going, you know, I'm gonna give it a shot because what have I got to lose? Okay, the guy doesn't work out well, you know what? And Aussie might not work out either. Like it's no difference. Yes, we do have to change procedures, you know, lots of things have to be in the cloud, which most of our stuff is being a tech company. But you know, you do need to change things, a few things operational so it's ready for a remote worker. But it's they they did they did. They came off my my local Australian platform ad. and then yeah, so that that's how it got instigated. Interesting enough. Yeah, both the Indian

Carmen: sure.

Lisa: and the Filipino.

Carmen: That's very interesting as well. And yeah, and I guess

Lisa: Mm.

Carmen: for probably like for the business owners out there who have never or are considering to try hiring offshore or, you know, virtual assistants overseas. could you share with them your experiences, whether it's like, you know, the I would say like the the advantages and the challenges when it comes to working with remote staff as well.

Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. So I mean i of course the big the big thing is you've got to make sure that you've you're set up to be able to have someone remote, set up with certain permissions, so you're not exposing yourself too much. you know, you need to have the time to be able to train them because it takes more time to train someone

Carmen: yeah.

Lisa: remotely than it does on site. and, you know, they're just like any other person. They might not work out, they might not have the right skills, you know, it there it's exactly the same as hiring someone. You can interview them to the cows come home. you can ask their references, but until they're actually in the role, you really don't know how they're gonna go. So, I suppose the only disadvantage or this challenge, I suppose, of a remote worker is they're not there. So if you're sending emails or Teams or WhatsApps or whatever it is and they don't answer, you really just don't know where they are. Is it they're not answering because they've decided

Carmen: Yes, you are.

Lisa: to resign, they're not answering because there's a flood in the Philippines and there's no internet. They're not answering because they're slacking off. Like there's

Carmen: yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: all all these elements that come to it with I suppose even if you had a remote worker in Australia, you know, if you had someone working from home and they didn't answer, are they cooking dinner, they hanging out the washing, they're picking up the kids from school. So, that that's probably that's probably the biggest challenge, you know, if people go MIA. but then, you know, you've also got the beautiful th beautiful thing where p they are. They're just good workers and they're on there from nine to five and they do the job. So I think with any any it doesn't matter whether they're remote or they're on site, you'll go through the the same process. You know, you can

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: hire an Australian that works on site and two months later you're like say to yourself they're not the right person and you have to fire them. or they'll resign themselves. Like it's it's the same process. It's the same process.

Carmen: Mm. Yeah, as well. I think at the end of the day, it also comes down to building that rapport or that trust between you and whoever you're working with as well. Because as you mentioned, right? It could be the same if you find somebody on site that it might not work out, they might not be doing well. And of course, even when you're in the office in person, there there are they there are ways where people could You know, not be as productive as they hoped as well. So I think it really comes down to, you know, the right person, having that trust. And I think trust really goes a long way because when you trust, okay, that person does their job, whether they're remote or whether they're overseas, they'll be able to get the work done. Doesn't matter when they log in, when they log out. It really does come down to trust as well, which is of course, you know, you it's always a risk taking a trust, you know. investing in somebody as well. But I I truly believe that, you know, there's always the you know, the the piece of like, do you have the chemistry, do you have the rapport and everything like that?

Lisa: Mm, I agree. Tr trust was actually gonna be the next thing out of my mouth was there is a high element

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely for sure.

Lisa: of trust. And I think some people probably may never be able to get a remote worker because some people can't I mean some business owners can't even relinquish doing the bookkeeping

Carmen: Yes.

Lisa: or the payroll because they just don't trust anyone. Where I'm I t I do trust and I do delegate. I I do believe if you're running a business you shouldn't be doing any of that. And because maybe because I've traveled the world and I have trusted a lot of people, but I think you've got to use a lot of gut intuition and you'll know whether the you know whether the job's getting done or not. If the job's getting

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: done, you know, you know, it's good. If the job's not getting done, it's pretty straightforward. If the job's not getting done, you know where to go next. So whether they're even on site, or off site, y setting KPIs, letting them know what's expected. is a good i good indication to give lots of people direction.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm definitely with you on the whole element about intuition, right? There's something about the fact that, you know, your your body never lies. Like sometimes you would you would just know in your gut, okay, can you trust that person? Can you work with that person? And sometimes what I find is also like as a recruiter, like, you know, you would find there's people they're completely perfect on paper, but something about your intuition tells, Okay, actually, you know, you f have a better feeling about this other person, even if they fulfill Let's say, I don't know, 70% of the requirements or something like that. So I think intuition is very, very powerful. And I think oftentimes we shouldn't ignore that, you know, because it really does tell you something as well. And so just wanted to say I really love what you mentioned there as well. So looking right now at QPC, do you feel at the moment there are certain parts of your business where you're like, okay. I feel like we're still spending a lot of time in this operational piece or doing this task and I wish I could delegate it to somebody. Is there anything right now where you're like, okay, there is a pain point right now? What would that be?

Lisa: You know what, Carmen? I've always thought I've always thought about that and it doesn't actually matter what size business you are, you're always gonna be resource constraint. So whether you're fifty thousand, five hundred thousand, five million or fifty million, you're always gonna have a constraint on resources and there's always gonna be something where you go, gee man, we need more here or we we're not doing this right here 'cause it it's incredible. You talk to anyone, you're never gonna find someone who goes, I've got it perfect. Like everything's just running humming perfectly. It's

Carmen: Yeah. Of course.

Lisa: just never the case because when you're small, you don't have enough resources. When you're bigger, you've got more problems. So then you need more resources.

Carmen: Yeah. Bring back the structure, yeah, yeah.

Lisa: yeah, and then when you get different people in in place, you've got a fresh pair of eyes and they see things you're like, Ooh, that's That's a good point. I like it what you saw there. Yeah, then you know what? That is a little bit of a missing link there. I know we've always been able to do it, but now that you're in, it's not very clear, is it, that that's what you do. They're like, no. I'm like, great, you need to fix that. So it's a really beautiful thing, I think, if you have that mindset that your business is never perfect. It y it runs, don't get me wrong. They all run and they all run. Well, mine runs quite well. But you've there's always something that can be improved. There's always a missing link. There's always, where did we fall down that communication? that didn't go to plan, did it? God, we've been doing it for eight N years. You think we'd have this knuckled down by now. But there's so many idiosyncrasies that happen. Technology changes every five minutes. An update changes. that changes the structure of how we do it. that does it that's not the way that we do it anymore. my God, that's knocked that process out. So you're constantly changing. And so, you know, sales, that's constantly changing. Well, the consumer is so much more knowledgeable now. They get to go on the internet. Well, they've got Chat GPT. You know, they come sometimes they come to me telling me what printer they want. And I'm like, You haven't even seen, you haven't even you don't even know my printers exist because we're not allowed to advertise them online. So they come to me going, this is the printer I need. I'm like, we don't even sell those printers because they're so small. We don't even deal with them. These are the ones you need. So it's a it's educating clients all the time. clients are more educated now because they Google. They they sometimes they chat GBT and they come to us with a list of printers and we're like those printers actually got discontinued two years ago. So unfortunately, sometimes the information that is brought to us is is actually well most of the time it's not right. Umperationally. Yeah, you know what? Like we've been doing it for that long and it always goes pretty smooth. But when you get a fresh pair of eyes in there, that's when the that's when the beautiful thing happens where they go, I can I'm not too quite sure what I do next. I'm like, mm, yeah, you're right. That's not very clear, is it? They're like, no. I'm like, well, you need to fix up the procedure. So you're always tweaking and changing. Well, for us, we're always tweaking and changing because we we actually do want it to be perfect. So we've actually got a program where we record all all the processes that we do. It doesn't matter whether you're doing a sale process, a pricing, you're deploying, you're changing an email address. It whatever we do in our business is actually logged into a online program. It's videoed and then a a SOP, which is a you know standard operating procedures, is being created from that. So it's a written procedure. So that's all uploaded into this online portal. So we're constantly uploading our knowledge to this one brain like so QPC has one brain and that's constantly evolving like all the time all the time so it's never going to be perfect and as you keep growing you're going to get resource restraint again you know so it's it's always a challenge Carmen it doesn't matter where you are there's no one I I I think if you sat down and spoke with any business owner, they'd never say, everything's perfect. I'm just gonna clock off right now. It's never it's never

Carmen: Yeah, just yes.

Lisa: like that. and that's probably what makes business owners so special is they just keep going, keep changing, keep tweaking, keep moving, keep adapting. I mean that's what we do. I have team members that might go on a holiday for two weeks. They come back and they're like, my God, what's changed in the two weeks? So we're just we're like That didn't work, let's change it. That let's pr improve that. that did happen. Someone's on maternity leave three months later, they're like have to train be trained on a whole new job. Let's like we're not gonna sit here and go, that didn't work. okay, we'll just deal with that later and just keep moving on. We're like, guys, you need to solve the problem. We're not repeating the problem again. So I you have to mention, you know, we we're just so lucky to have such a proactive team. who who thrives on change and and you know and and and and we ask for that, you know, when we hire people we're we're making sure we're hiring the people with the right mindset. That y we're not

Carmen: Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa: staying still. My my my motto is, you know, you adapt or die.

Carmen: Mm, yeah, that's very powerful as well. I mean, it's always a lifelong learning journey of constant evolving, adapting, and yeah, lifelong learning as well. Because as you adapt, you also learn as well and also build resilience as well, which is really important because we're living in a world where it's like constantly Rapid growing, fast changing. So yeah, as you mentioned, yeah, if we don't adapt, we die. So it is really important as well. okay. So Lisa, just one final question that I love to ask every single one of my podcast guests coming in. if there was one piece of advice that you would like to share to the listeners out there, what would it be?

Lisa: Well, who's my listener? The business owner?

Carmen: Whoever it could be, it could be somebody considering to start a business or anybody curious about the world of entrepreneurship. yeah, I would say in that field.

Lisa: that's a big question, isn't it?

Carmen: Yeah. The golden fish.

Lisa: I think you've got to make sure that you're in it for the right reasons. You've got to be in it really to help people and to help solve a problem. I think if you're in it for any other reason, you won't be fulfilled. You won't be driven by helping like really solve that problem, like Like I just adore helping people. I really do. Whether it was manage print or if I got out of this business and and and did another business or another product or so it wouldn't matter. I just absolutely love helping people, putting a smile on their face, and they walk away and go, Man, that was great. Your advice really helped me. I think it's critical that you know, you're not in it for the money, you're not in it for anything else other than really to help solve a problem. And structure the business right. If you're an entrepreneur, structure it so that you're not in the day-to-day operations because it's pivotal that the founder or that entrepreneur needs to have the space to be able to learn, grow, think, apply. if you're down in the trenches, you're too busy being a keyboard pusher rather than

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: being that warrior of going, you know what, I just just traveled to the States there and I really saw that idea. I really wanna I think that's growing and implement that. But if you come back and you've got to be in the trenches of doing payroll or processing orders, you're just back into an administrative role rather than

Carmen: Yeah.

Lisa: going, I'm gonna work on this little bit of thing. you know, and and

Carmen: Yeah, the business profits.

Lisa: and if you've set it up even better where maybe you've got a manager and you're really not doing anything, then that's that's great. but I'm I'm the type of person that I'm I'm too active, I can't sit still, so I'm always going to be working on the business and growing it. So yeah, that that'll be my piece of advice is be in it for the right reasons. because if you're in it for the right reasons, everything else will come and you won't get bored with it. You know, it it takes a lot of grunt to get a business up and running. It takes a lot of if there's a lot of risk, and there's a plenty a lot of reward if you do it right. And and I think if you're in it for the right reasons, all that hard s work, the sweat and tears that you put in there, mate, the late nights, the early mornings that you do, there's a reward at the end of it. And I s and I think you've got it you've gotta make sure you're doing it really for the right reasons. It's really important. 'Cause otherwise you'll resent opening it. You won't get any holidays because you haven't set it up right, you'll hate your business, you hate your employees, you y it's won't be a pleasant time. And I have spoken to some business owners who haven't had holidays in ten years and I'm like, you should just you should you

Carmen: wow. That's

Lisa: should just be an employee, get your four weeks a year and have a better lifestyle. Because you know, that's heartbreaking to me to hear that they haven't had a break. That's there's there's there's a lot there's a lot that goes in the background of running a business that no one sees. They just see you rock up the office and that's all they think that you do. And they don't understand what's happening in the background and and I mean, I take my hat off to any business owner, I don't care if you're doing five thousand a year or five hundred million a year. everyone's got the same drive and the same risk and the same you're all in the same boat. So yeah, do it for the right reasons and set it upright.

Carmen: Yeah, lovely. Definitely for sure. Do it for the right reasons. Be intentional about it. And of course, everything is going to pay off and it's going to be a very rewarding feeling in the end to really come from a place of helping people as well. Lisa, thank you so much again for your time and for coming on to Behind the Founders to speak with me. I definitely enjoyed the conversation. Well, this is Behind the Founders. Be sure to stay tuned for the next episode. See you again.

Lisa: Thank you, Kama.

Carmen: All right.