Nearshoring Unlocked: Brian Samson's Guide to Global Talent and Business Growth

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In this insightful episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Brian Samson, a seasoned expert in nearshoring and connecting U.S. companies with top talent in Latin America. With over a decade of experience, Brian shares his journey of transforming the way businesses approach global hiring, emphasizing the benefits of nearshoring over traditional outsourcing. He explains how Latin America offers a wealth of skilled professionals who not only share similar time zones but also possess a strong work ethic and problem-solving skills, making collaboration seamless.
Brian dives into the common misconceptions about hiring from Latin America, countering stereotypes with real insights into the resilience and adaptability of its workforce. He discusses the types of roles most frequently filled through nearshoring, from software development to virtual assistance, and highlights the advantages companies gain by embracing this approach.
Listeners will also learn about the pitfalls to avoid when hiring internationally and the importance of treating remote team members as integral parts of the organization. Brian shares valuable advice for business owners considering nearshoring, including resources like his podcast, Nearshore Cafe, and his company website, Plugg Tech, where they can find guides and advice.
This episode is packed with practical tips and encouragement for entrepreneurs looking to expand their horizons and tap into the incredible talent pool just south of the border. Tune in for a conversation that could change the way you think about global hiring!
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The key differences between nearshoring and outsourcing
- Why Latin America is an untapped resource for U.S. companies
- Common myths about hiring talent from Latin America
- The roles that are most commonly filled through nearshoring
- How to effectively integrate international hires into your business
For more information on Brian Samson and his work, visit pluggtech.com and check out the Nearshore Cafe podcast for more insights.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is someone who has spent a decade working across international borders, helping companies scale smarter and faster with deep experience in connecting businesses in the United States to talent in Latin America. Brian Sampson has worked to help hundreds of organizations expand their teams while navigating global hiring. So we're going to be talking to Brian about everything that he's doing to help these organizations and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So Brian, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Sure. Uh I have been in the near shore game for going on 11 years. And what that really means is um connecting talent from Latin America to U.S. companies. Work with a lot of small and medium-sized companies. And, you know, Latin America is interesting because for a long time we have really looked to India, um, the Philippines, China, you know, is where we want to send work to. China's been the manufacturing place. Philippines is really call center focused and virtual assistance, and India's been IT. But uh there's a trade-off there, you know, a time zone. And uh that big ocean in the middle means somebody's sleeping and somebody's working. But Latin America's been there all along, and it's the same time zone as the US, and there's a ton of really great talent. So I've spent my last 11 years um building companies that provide that service, connecting people in the same time zone that are really high quality and critical thinkers, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, for listeners who might not be aware, explain uh what near shoring is and how is it different from outsourcing or or you know offshore?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, so offshoring, uh you've got a big ocean in between you, right? So that means that nobody's on the same time zone. Now, the reason why you might offshore is uh the cost savings are tremendous, but the drawback to offshoring is you're either working uh different hours than somebody. Um, so that means that when they finish, you know, they send you an email and then you're just waking up. So if they didn't quite exactly get the specs or understand what you're looking for, um, you kind of lose that whole day, you know, and you wait for them to wake up again, and there's really very little collaboration that can happen. Uh with near shoring, it's the same time zone. So you can collaborate all day long. Uh, you know, if you're, let's say, in Ohio and your team is in Mexico, you're basically in the exact same time zone. So you get eight hours of work together. And in the day and age of remote work, you know, why not? So you get a little bit of a cost savings, not as dramatic as Asia, but you also get to have that full workday overlap. And uh that's why people tend to like tend to want to do near shoring.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Well, I know you've spent 10 years working between the U.S. and Latin America. So talk about what first drew you to this space and what what opportunities did you see early on?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, so I I did it. I was a founder of a uh company that was in the fintech world, which is you know building like the next generation of banking apps and startups. And uh I ended up living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And if you've never been there, that's okay. Not many people have, but um, it's a country with 40 million people. Buenos Aires is a mega city with about 14 million in the whole greater region, and uh it's everything, you know, like just on steroids. So you've got beautiful tree-lined streets, cafes. If you like steak, there's no better place for steak, wine, uh, croissants, it's very European, uh, a lot of Paris, Parisian style architecture. Um, but then at the same time, you know, you've got high inflation, sometimes hyperinflation. Um, you've got uh really challenging obstacles to do business and high taxes, very pro-labor versus pro-business. So uh you got challenges there too. But what is really exciting is how great the talent is. They're very used to working with the U.S. Um, although Spanish is their first language, you'd be surprised at how Americanized their English is. And they, because of the climate that they're in, it's a tough place to live. Um, they know that the biggest way to increase their salary is to speak perfect US style English. So there's a major motivator there. And um, you know, I went there to build a software company, but I've stayed because the um the creativity, the work ethic, the problem solving, the English, it's just all incredible. And um, I'm continuing to invest there and double down, and now all over Latin America, not just Argentina. Uh, Mexico has been a great place for us. Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Brazil, Peru. Each of these countries is special in their own way, but the region as a whole is uh just um a treasure trove of great talent and very little sacrifice. Um, don't have to sacrifice time zone, uh, don't have to sacrifice quality. You get problem solvers, they're used to AI tools, you know, all this uh uh just a lot of great things going for it.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Well, what what roles are companies most commonly filling using near shore and because I know your company has made more than 500 placements with Latinum professionals and US companies.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, good good question. So IT is often the most mature thing that gets um offshore to near short first, you know. So um India has been doing it, you know, since the 1980s, 1990s, the dot-com boom. Um, so it's super mature. Uh Latin America really for about 20, 25 years. So that's often the first positions because they're the most commonly organized. Uh, and that's the same for us, you know, about 90% of our roles are IT, IT adjacent. So software developers, QA, Salesforce leads, things like that. Um, but we uh we can also do uh call center. We built a call center in Nicaragua, we can do um virtual assistants, executive assistants, marketing and content people, payroll and billing, basically anything that's kind of like a white-collar role uh we'll do from Latin America.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

We'll talk about some of the biggest myths or misconceptions business owners have about hiring talent from Latin America.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, I think, you know, um America, United States, it's a big place. Um, so that means people can be really well traveled within the states. Um and you know, we've we've got everything here. We've got Hawaii, you know, a tropical island, we've got Alaska, you know, with glaciers, we've got uh the Grand Canyon, we've got Florida with Everglades, we've got New York City. So America's got a lot um to see. Um so that means um only 25% of Americans have passports, and many of them who've been to Latin America have gone to like resorts in Cancun or a cruise ship. And hey, I've I've done all those things and I had a great time doing it. But that means you know, we we don't really know what's going on outside of um what the newspaper tells us, or maybe like a Netflix show. So, you know, think about um like Narcos, you know, on uh you know, all these cartel shows on Netflix, or you you know, hear about this uh kidnapping of Maduro, you know, the the leader of Venezuela, or the wild inflation going on, and you just kind of leave it at that. Um so the misconception, or I guess the myth is um that all these countries are just kind of chaos, so the people must be chaos. But I want you to look one level deeper, you know, that just because the country is chaotic, the people there are used to the chaos, so that means that they can um nothing you throw at them will really phase them. You know, they're very calm, they're very adaptable, very flexible. A lot of stuff just kind of rolls off their back, it's no big deal, you know. Um, all the things that stress us out as business owners, no big deal for people in Latin America. And we face problems all day, so do they. So they're really used to it. So I think that's the biggest misconception is just, you know, what I read in the newspaper applies to the millions and millions of people, you know, in that uh continent. But um they're really the byproduct of the chaos, which has turned them into battle-hardened uh problem solvers.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, from a business perspective, w what are some of the advantages companies gain wh when they embrace near showing?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, the the surface level stuff is going to be time zone and cost, but you know, one level deeper, you get that creativity, the problem-solving ability, uh, and the the US style English.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Talk about some of the challenges and miss uh or mistakes companies make when they first start hiring internationally.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, I think um what companies tend to do is they have like an us versus them mentality, you know, like us here in the states and them as those foreign, you know, low-cost resources that we hired somewhere else. But um there's very little gap, you know, between talent in the states and talent in Latin America. And uh people are really surprised, you know, when they uncover that. So the more you just run them through your same hiring process, you don't have to do anything special. Um, the same way if you're in New York and you hire somebody in Ohio, the same interview process um you do for that person is the same interview process you should do for the person in Mexico, the same onboarding uh you should do, and just treat them like a real person. And it's um amazing what you'll get out of it. Um, but the mistakes usually happen is when you treat them wildly different because uh they don't need to be treated differently.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Well, you've had the privilege of building three companies from zero to four million in annual revenue. So what are some of the lessons you learn from entrepreneurs when it comes to billing and scaling companies across international borders?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, I I I wouldn't even say this applies to international. I think this applies to anything is um remember, you kind of have the superpower when you're a founder of a company in that um clients and prospects love talking to the founder because they know no one's gonna care more than you. And um, they'll give you a lot more grace. And you also really need to know how to sell before you um you know hire salespeople. So uh that's that's something I would really really lean in. And maybe the other advice is don't be distracted by uh activity that isn't really important. Uh I mean if you wanted to, you could spend two weeks trying to research if you should be an S Corp or a C Corp or incorporate in Wyoming or Nevada or Delaware or wherever. Or um, you know, should you have uh an about us section on your website or not? Just get a customer, you know, don't get distracted by all these other things because there will always be a million distractions. Just kind of focus on on um learning how to sell and focus on um things that will help you get and keep customers.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Well, for a business owner listening to the day who is curious about near shoring but not sure where to start, what what is the first step or the uh most important advice you would uh give them?

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Yeah, we we have our own podcast. It's called uh Nearshore Cafe. And uh we've got over 80 episodes on there now of people just like uh like our listeners that maybe um were curious and they dip their toe and they tell their stories about it. You know, how are they how they hired a virtual assistant from Mexico or how they hired um a bunch of software engineers in Argentina or Brazil, and like the steps they took, the lessons they learned, um the challenges they had. You know, we we try to keep it real. So I think the podcast is a good start to get educated. And then um they can also go to our website, uh P-L-U-G-G dot tech, T-E-C-H, and we've got all sorts of country guides and collateral, and uh, we can also schedule a call where uh they can talk directly to me and make sure they get all their questions answered.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

We're looking forward in the next five to ten years. How do you see near shoring and global hiring evolving?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, I think um AI is is part of near shoring. Um, and we forget sometimes that globally people have access to these same tools that we do. So uh, you know, you get um kind of the extra arbitrage opportunity if you pair uh if you look at the world as an opportunity for talent, and you also pair them with AI, it's a real force to be reckoned with.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Or tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, I mean, we're always uh uh onboarding new customers and doing a lot of exciting stuff. Um so we are uh always excited to talk about that specifically with um with our prospects.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Go at that website again so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Uh that's plug P-L-U-G-G dot tech, T-E-C-H.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

All right. Well, close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listener.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Uh no, I appreciate all your questions, Curtis. This is this is a lot of fun. And uh I just encourage people to um uh you know, all you gotta do is look at this continent uh right below us on the map. And uh there's a lot of really exciting things happening down there, a lot of really great people, and uh it's gonna accelerate your business by opening up your your um eyes and your mind.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

All right, so ladies and gentlemen, if you know of any business owners out there looking at near showing or if they've never considered it, please be sure to follow rate review and share this episode to as many people as possible. Also check out Brian's website um and podcast, plug P-L-U-G-G dot tech. And also go to www.gurveball337.com. If you haven't done so, sign up for that newsletter, leave us a review, follow the show, share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Brian, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me. Oh, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.