2.130 How to Build a Successful Remote Team with Renee Francis

In this episode of Find Grow Keep, I sit down with Renee Francis, founder of The Bubble Co and Take3, two marketing agencies that have been fully remote since day one. Renee shares her journey of building flexible teams over the last decade, the leadership lessons she’s learned, and the structures that keep her businesses innovative and connected. 

We cover: 
✅ Why remote work isn’t for everyone — and how to spot who will thrive in it 
✅ How to hire successfully for flexible environments 
✅ Why innovation doesn’t have to suffer when teams aren’t in the same office 
✅ The leadership mindset shift from “lucky to have staff” to “building a career opportunity” 
✅ How to create a supportive, psychologically safe culture that scales remotely 

Renee also explains how her team is staying ahead of the curve with an AI-driven SEO service, proving that distributed teams can still be highly innovative. 

Whether you’re leading a remote team or just exploring flexible work options, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply in your own business. 

Connect with Renee on LinkedIn or visit https://thebubbleco.com.au/  and https://take3.io/  

Make sure to subscribe to stay updated with new releases on Mondays!
 
Visit https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/ for more insights and resources.

Get our free eBook packed with practical strategies to attract, engage, and retain top talent. Perfect for business owners and leaders focused on building a thriving team. Download it at amplifyhr.com.au/downloadable/find-grow-keep

Transcript

Karen Kirton    
welcome to Episode 130. And today I'm joined by Renee Francis, who's the founder of the The Bubble Co and Take Three, which are two completely remote and flexible marketing agencies that have been running for almost 10 years, great milestone and also three years respectively. So welcome, Renee. 
Renee Francis   0:29
thanks, Karen. Thanks for having me. 
Karen Kirton   0:36
It's great to have you on, you know, we first met a couple of years ago at a conference and that the world's changed a lot since then. That was kind of just at the end of of COVID. And as I mentioned, you know, your whole team has been working remotely actually since you started the business so well before COVID. So we're going to talk about that.
A bit today, but I wonder if to start off with, you could tell us about the teams that your businesses, you know how big they are, how you work and what does growth look like for you and your business right now? 
Renee Francis   1:08
Yeah, absolutely. So our team for two businesses. So the first one is the bubble code that's been running for 10 years. We've got a team of about 15 people and most of our team is spread out across Australia. So we've got team members in Queensland, in NSW, in Victoria and even in Perth.
And one of our longest standing team members is actually over in New Zealand, but we don't hold that against him. We're still, we're still loving regardless and yeah, it and then in take three, we've got a growing team of about seven or eight people now actually and.
So I've always had this model from the beginning days of the bubble code to have, yeah, fully remote and fully flexible team. So I worked in the corporate world for like over 10 years before I started the businesses. And one thing that really stifled me was the, you know, the structure and the rigidity of corporate world.
And I really longed for that, like flexibility to be able to work when I needed to and from where I needed to. And in an industry like ours, which is digital marketing, we really just need a laptop and the Internet and we can work from wherever we are. And of course, that doesn't work for every single person. People do need to have the right attitude or.
I mean, all those sorts of things and for me and now our team members that we've found, we all have those same values and same morals, which is we want to work really hard, we want to deliver amazing results, but at the same time, we want to have the flexibility to to work as we need rather than being confined by rigid schedules. And what we actually find is that.
A lot of our team members might start working earlier or work even later because that's what suits their lifestyle and I've always thought over the years had to pull myself in sometimes because when I see team members replying at 10:00 PM at night or working at 12:00 AM, I'm thinking, Oh no, what are they doing? They're working really late and then I have to remember, hold on. That's probably because that's suiting there.
Schedule for today and they've done other things during the day and they wanted to work at night and it works for us because we have the right systems and structures in place to make sure that we can all thrive in that environment. 
Karen Kirton   3:10
And with that, I think there is a benefit to actually starting this kind of work by design from the start versus what many people were stuck with, which was, Oh my goodness, we're now all forced to work from home. What do we do? But I'd love to know. You know what, what lessons did you learn? 
Renee Francis   3:25
Yes. 
Karen Kirton   3:31
What makes it work for you? 
Renee Francis   3:34
I've learned so many lessons along the way. So I mean, at the in the beginning and in the early years, I was very I was very young and like naive, I guess as a business owner and a leader and I had the misconception that everybody would want the same things I want and work in the same ways that I work and you know prioritise work.
And you're along the way. I've learned that this working environment, while it suits me and it suits the team members that we have today, it isn't suitable for everybody. So some people that I speak to say no, I would really prefer a nine to five job where I go into an office, I separate the work and home and then I come home to, you know. 
Karen Kirton   4:10
Hmm. 
Renee Francis   4:13
And it's all separate and and that works really well for some people and not others as well. So that's probably the biggest lesson that I learned is that I thought that this would appeal and work for everybody, but it definitely doesn't work for everybody, right. There's a certain type of people that this works really well for, and that's OK. It doesn't need to work for everybody. It just needs to work.
For the people that are in our team. 
Karen Kirton   4:35
Yeah. And I think that's a good point. And you know, even when we started today and you said to me, is that a real background on your video? And because I like working from the office, but you know, I'm often here alone and that's OK with me. But, you know, everyone has their their different things and and I prefer that separation. 
Renee Francis   4:41
Yeah.
Yeah. 
Karen Kirton   4:55
But I also like being able to work from home when it would just be far too hard to get into the office or it's terrible weather or all those sorts of things. But with your business because you are, you know, all at home. 
Renee Francis   5:03
Yes, exactly. 
Karen Kirton   5:10
How does that look from a hiring perspective? So if you've got people that are earlier on in their career, are they really suited to this kind of environment? If they don't have that person physically alongside of them or, you know, has that been a challenge? How does that work for you? 
Renee Francis   5:26
Yeah, definitely. What a great point. So the short answer is no, it doesn't suit them. And then I found over 10 years only two exceptions to that to that what I just said. So we tend to hire mostly people who have, you know, probably at least eight to 10 years of experience in the working. 
Karen Kirton   5:31
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   5:45
World, we also tend to hire people who have done some sort of freelancing or contracting before because then this type of work environment really suits them where they're autonomous and can choose their own hours to an extent. And I do want to stress that when we say like flexible work and working from home, a lot of larger corporations will. 
Karen Kirton   5:50
Hmm. 
Renee Francis   6:05
Coined the term flexible work when they're allowing their team members to perhaps work from home two days a week or or something of that nature, but our work is like truly flexible in that. Like I said, people can start working really early in the morning or work late at night. So you know, we've got quite a few working parents in our team and several of those like to.
To get up early, do a lot of work and then perhaps the middle part of the day they're with their children and they're doing some other things and then they'll come back on in the afternoon and evening and and do their work. And like I said, we've set up a lot of systems and structures and processes to allow this to work. It's not just OK free for all. Everybody just work when you need to. 
Karen Kirton   6:44
Do what you want, yeah. 
Renee Francis   6:45
Exactly. It's definitely there's a lot of discipline and there's a lot of structure in our agencies to make this operation work and to make it have worked for 10 years now. So it's not, it's not like a simple and easy and easy thing to to achieve, especially because we started before it was popular. Like you said, we started in 2016 as a remote agency, but in yes, in saying that we don't tend to hire people really early on in their career because of the nature of our work, right? We don't want to stifle or hold anyone back from those like learning opportunities in those early years of their career where they really do need mentor and someone sitting beside them.
So 2 exceptions to that rule are two young guys that have hired over the year where the years where the first one he actually started contracting for us just after work on weekdays after his full time job and on the weekends he did a bit of work for us.
And for months, he was like Renee. Please. I really want to come and join your team. And I said to him, I would love that, but I really don't want to hold you back from like in your early 20s. There's this really crucial time in your career where you're learning and you need someone sitting next to you. And that's not our team environment. Like, we've got loads of support. We've got loads of training, but it's all very digital and remote. Like, there's not someone sitting.
Beside you and it took three to four months of him just showing us how good he was and how ready he was for this environment. And I broke that rule that I that we had basically and we hired him and he's been one of our best hires today. Actually he's such a valued member of our team. So like I said, it really does come. 
Karen Kirton   8:17
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   8:21
To the individual person and their nature, their motivation, you know their work ethic and so it it does doesn't work for everybody, but it does work for, yeah, the people we have. 
Karen Kirton   8:23
Yes.
Yeah, that's excellent. And one of the things that's often, you know, brought up as a a disadvantage to remote working is innovation being stifled because if you're not physically working together, then how do you, you know, bounce ideas et cetera, but you've just launched an SEO service that specifically looks at AI LLMS on top of the usual search channels and so this is like pretty new stuff like there aren't many people I have seen talking about this, so I kind of went well, that's pretty innovative. So can you tell me about the innovation, how did that happen across your team and also for those that have no idea of the letters that I just said, perhaps also explain what the service is. 
Renee Francis   9:18 
So yeah, absolutely. So I mean, firstly, I mean your your comment about innovation can be stifled if we're not together. I mean, we do spend a lot of time together. So we have regular catch UPS, we do regular work together, days we meet up at clients offices, we're very collaborative. 
With clients, so there have been times where I'll have a team member say, oh, for a right team, we sure do see each other a lot and we are. It's just removing that, that very kind of monotonous, stifling nature of you have to be at your desk from 9:00 to 5:00 in this office  

Search engine optimization. So in a traditional sense, it's how to get your website ranking on that first page and in the top positions of Google for example, and other search engines. But now we're moving into this AILLM world. So AILLMS are the large language models like ChatGPT and perplexity, and. 

 
And grok, for example, and so what's becoming an increasingly important these days is to also optimise your website and content to show up in the answers that these AILLMS give to people. And so part of our new service offering is an extension on traditional SEO.
To make sure that, yeah, your content website and your products and your services show up in these answers, that Chat GPT is giving out to people. And yeah, it's it's become increasingly important because more and more people are now turning to these platforms for research.

 
Karen Kirton   11:08
Everything, yes. 
Renee Francis   11:08
And it's interesting because yeah, and some people say, oh, you know, I don't really use AI that much. I still use Google. But Google itself gives you the AI overview now kind of powered by Gemini. So everyone's using AI without even perhaps realising it these days. So It's come about from. Yeah, that shift and the new trends of of everybody using these tools now as well as some clients started asking for it. Oh, how do we show up here? How do we show up there? So, you know, we wanted to get ahead, make sure our clients are always ahead of the curves and trends and and and taking care of them in every in every channel when.
That's how that all came about. So yeah, our team continues to like, innovate and stay ahead of trends and and things for all our clients. You know, regardless of our working environment. 
Karen Kirton   11:55
Yeah, awesome. Now you as a leader, what has been the biggest challenge or surprise in your leadership journey? 
Renee Francis   12:07
I mean, you said we only have 15 minutes, Karen. 
Karen Kirton   12:09
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   12:12
Oh, look. Yeah. Leadership and like, yeah, just entrepreneurship and running a business is like a constant lesson. Every single day I'm constantly learning, and I think that's what makes it so interesting and exciting. Just, you know, there's always something new to learn. But in terms of like, a people related challenge. 
Karen Kirton   12:23
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   12:29
I mean where should I start? I I think kind of leaning on what I mentioned earlier, we're in the early stages. It's you know personally and I and I was speaking to other people who also have this thought is I I thought people would work in the same way I work.
And you know, I thought, oh, cool, these are the expectations I have and obviously that's the same as what everyone else will have. And as a leader, you know, we quickly learned that that's not always the case and that it does take, you know, sometimes it does take a lot more training, a lot more, reminding a lot more, setting up of processes and structures. 
Karen Kirton   12:47
Yes. 
Renee Francis   13:05
To ensure your team is working, you know to the standards that you know you expect and that everyone needs. And then also you know people related challenges is a big one for me was learning about just the interviewing process. You know in the early stages of the business.
And just to give you the perspective I started the first business, the Bubble Co with my laptop and the Internet at home on my dining table. That time I started that business. So when I grew it to a stage where we needed to hire people, I saw her as like such a, you know, such a blessing that anyone would. 
Karen Kirton   13:32
None. 
Renee Francis   13:42
Actually want to come and work in this business that I started on my dining table, right. And it took a while for me to change that perspective of actually, you know, we'll build something really cool here. We'll build a really great agency. We have amazing clients, global clients. We do amazing marketing work and we have the added benefit of. 
Karen Kirton   13:45
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   14:02
Flexible and remote working nature. So actually I've got something really cool to offer people as in terms of a career. And so once I shifted that perspective, I learnt better how to interview and how to you know select the right people to join the team, to maintain that culture and maintain the environment that we had built. 
Karen Kirton   14:07
Yeah. 
Renee Francis   14:21
And like that's been the most important thing for, you know, sustaining the culture that we have and like having that right team fit with the people that we select to join as well. 
Karen Kirton   14:33
Yeah, I love that because it is such a mindset shift for many founders to I've actually got like a real business now. So and just finally you just touched on culture. So how do you approach workplace culture, especially as the business grows and you know, you've got two separate businesses, so. 
Renee Francis   14:41
Yeah.
Yes. 
Karen Kirton   14:53
So how do you approach that and make sure that your your culture has continued to thrive? 
Renee Francis   14:59
Culture's always been really important for me because as I mentioned, I spent ten years in the corporate world, and while I had some good experiences in culture because I worked across 10 different businesses, right, and there were some places that had really great culture and then some that really did not. And actually those places.
Taught me the most. I learned the most about when I started the business, how I wanted the culture to be, and I always wanted to have a very supportive and culture, a very learning and educational orientated culture.
And say, like a psychologically safe culture as well. And so the way that we approach culture is is to, like, create all those elements into a nice environment and being remote like we add a lot of like extra things into our sort of team. So for example. 
Karen Kirton   15:36
Right. 
Renee Francis   15:52
We do things called team drives, and some of those team drives are like a health and fitness challenge for a month or two, and there are prizes involved. Some of them have been more about well being where other things are added in, like reading or meditation or how much water you can like drink in a day. I mean, not, you know, without going overboard, but like. 
Karen Kirton   16:00
Yeah.
Oh. 
Renee Francis   16:12
Healthy amounts of water. Exactly. And then we've had more work related ones where we're like, right, what's the most creative campaign we can come up with for a client, for example. And then we go ahead and present it to them. And we, like I said, we have regular catch UPS. We do a lot of really nice things in the team that. 
Karen Kirton   16:13
Try and keep to you 2 leaders, yeah. 
Renee Francis   16:31
Keep each other connected throughout the day. I mean, we just have a channel in our group chat, one channel, just specifically just for learning, one for like group updates, one for you know there's a lot of bands that goes in there and just the the culture that we've been able to create with everyone being remote like I'm so proud of it.
I'm not sure if we ever spoke about this, but last year in 2024, we actually got nominated in the Commbank Business Awards for the Best place to work of 2024 in Australia. And thank you. And it was like that was such like a full circle moment for us because starting a business based on. 
Karen Kirton   17:01
Oh, excellent. Congratulations. Amazing. 
Renee Francis   17:11
Being in corporate for 10 years and not liking the culture and and you know some of the things that I experienced there and and then wanting to build a flexible remote supportive cultured business. But then for it to be recognised as like a finalist as one of the best places to work that was. 
Karen Kirton   17:28
Yes. 
Renee Francis   17:30
That was really like fulfilling for me for sure. 
Karen Kirton   17:34
Amazing. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that. I really enjoyed the conversation. It feels to me like it's got super quick, but I could talk for hours about all of these things. But thank you for joining. What's the best way that people can get in touch with you if they want to talk about SEO for their business?
Digital marketing or even just get some tips on remote working. 
Renee Francis   17:56
Yeah, for sure. Linkedin's a great way. So you can just type in my name, Renee. Francis. You'll see me pop up and, yeah, feel free to connect and send me dm. And you can also reach out to us through both websites. So the bubbleco.com.au or take three dot IO. 
Karen Kirton   18:12
Excellent. I will put the links to those in the show notes as well for everybody and for those listening, if you've received value for this episode, I'd love it if you could leave a rating or a review over Apple Podcasts or Spotify so somebody else can find the episodes to help with their business.
Episodes released on Mondays. So click subscribe and you'll be notified of when it's available. If you have any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes, head on over to amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation. Thank you so much for joining me, Renee. 
Renee Francis   18:46 
Thanks for having me, Karen.