Offshoring for Title Agencies: Strategy & Implementation | Ep 40

In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shamil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Title Agents Podcast. Today we have our regular guest and contributor, Hope Adhaviani.

She's a director of operations at Alltech National Title. Today I want to talk about the power of delegation and offshoring. Welcome Hope to the show. For those of you that do not know you, can you tell us a little background about yourself, what you do at Alltech National Title? Sure.

My name is Hope Adhaviani, and I am the director of operations at Alltech National, and I manage and oversee all the lovely operations and people we have. So how are things with you and operations so far? And we're in mid-March, almost third week of March in 2025. How's the market? How are things with you and your team?

As everybody knows, it's kind of slow right now, but now is the time to revamp the workflows, revamp the processes, and maybe re-look at your people too. So while it's slow, you want to set yourself up for success, and that's kind of what we're focusing on. As you know, offshoring is becoming a bigger topic in the title industry, especially when the margin is shrinking and business is slow. From an operational standpoint, why should agencies, title agencies, consider it as part of their business strategy? I think that not only the cost, because it is minimal for the labor offshore, but you can actually find stronger work ethic and employees offshore that I've noticed in my experience.

There may be a lot of politics and nuances here that get in the way, that challenge the longevity and loyalty of employees, but offshore, they want to work. They want to do this. They want to learn more, and they have the capabilities and abilities. So we're just utilizing that. And some of them even have more experience in title, so just use that and then grow and build off of that talent and eagerness to learn.

What type of roles or tasks are best suited for offshoring for a title agency? I would say probably data entry, of course, any administrative tasks. Monitoring emails is a huge bottleneck in this industry, so that's a huge help. Clearing- How many emails you get a day? I would say 400 on average, and then when I cover people, because I also do HR and training and stuff like that, but when I cover people, it's even more.

And you know everybody in this industry, you got to respond within five minutes, so that can be tough. So utilizing AI and offshore people to monitor emails, it helps with that bottlenecking, but also clearing title, pre-processing tasks, document retrieval, and so on. What are some common misconceptions about offshoring that you think need to be addressed? A lot of people think that there's a language barrier or maybe even time barriers that prevent the work from being done, but we have not found that all the time. If you find the right people and the right team, they actually know four languages.

They actually could be a positive to your workflow. And the time barriers, you just set that standard up front. Hey, this is when I need you and they'll work it. So it's just setting that standard up front. And I know people also care about, well, what about personalization?

You're lacking personalization. We give them phone numbers. They're able to help us with that client communication piece if we need it, depending on the role and the transaction. But yeah, you don't lose any of that aspect. So some agency owners or title managers often worry about losing control when they're offshore.

What steps can they take to maintain oversight while still trusting their offshore teams? I have found in my experience having a team lead because agency owners and COOs like myself, we can't do it all. We're a jack of all trades, master of none, but we can't see everything. So having a team lead or a manager or even boots on the ground like we have, somebody there that you can grow around and build around that is able to train new members, because I know virtual can be really tough on training, but train new members in person, monitor them and their responsibilities. We are very heavy on reporting weekly.

Each individual employee gets individual reports that they have to track for accountability. And then this way, we know who to weed out quickly, who to elevate and how to improve on the workflows. So I think one of the mistakes from my experience talking to some title professionals is, well, not as in title, like in general, when you're offshore, people literally, they think you can plug and play. They're like, well, if you hire somebody here in the US, you're going to plug and play. It doesn't work that way.

There's no difference. There's an onboarding process, there's training. If you approach it the right way, then it will succeed. But if you're just kind of looking for a magic bullet, there is no magic bullet, as you know, what am I looking for? No.

And I think the hardest part is getting people from paper to paperless. It's not the offshore training. That's probably the easiest part. I think it's getting people from going paper files to digital. So what are some key factors that determine whether the offshoring strategy will succeed or fail?

I know I've touched a little bit on it, but I would love your input. Some key factors, I would say the reporting and the tasks. You have to have a core workflow and you have to have task allocation per department. Like you're going to have pre-processing, you're going to have order entry. You want to make sure you segregate those duties, not throw them all on one person or one team.

Segregate those duties, monitor those duties, and let people know exactly what they're doing and then track it through reporting through your title platform. Can you share a success story, perhaps from your own experience at Alltech National Title, where offshoring had a significant impact? I'm sure you have plenty of stories with the amazing people you have. Where do I begin? We've had so many amazing people over the 15 years I've been with Alltech, but I guess when I was processing back in the day, we had just started the offshoring process and I had gone from 86 closings, not opened, closings per month, all by myself, where I had to do nuts to bolts, start to finish.

And I was working 15 hours a day, whatever, plus commute. But then we brought on the offshore team and oh my God, it was like a breath of fresh air. I was able to give the mundane tasks to them, and I assigned them. I took over that leadership. I was the person here managing the files.

I was the quarterback. And then I gave them, my pre-processor, all the mundane tasks. And I was able to pick up the phone again. I was able to increase my customer satisfaction levels and survey results. So it just changed not only my perspective, because I was hesitant too.

I was like, oh, I don't want to offshore it and I'm a control freak. And I know all of us are in the title industry, but to free up time and for me to be able to go home a normal eight-hour workday, that's life-changing, especially with young kids. So compliance and security are always top of mind in our industry. How can agencies ensure offshore teams handle sensitive data securely while staying compliant and adhering to the best practices? Yeah.

So, I mean, it depends on the title platform, but make sure that they're using a VPN through your cybersecurity network, but also use a two-step authenticator. So our platform that we use has the two-step authenticator. It's a SOC 2 platform, but you can do some additional measures yourself. Have them log in through a VPN, do two-step authenticators to their email platform, and then monitor their permissions monthly. We do this on a monthly basis.

We monitor all the department's permissions to make sure nothing's changed. Can they touch checks? Can they do this? And then adjust as needed. That way you can maintain the monthly check-ins, your portal access points, and then do quarterly reviews.

And I'm sure also training, like cybersecurity training and the whole, everybody, not just the offshore. Yeah. We do cybersecurity training once a quarter for all team members in addition to their normal task training. Beyond offshore, and delegation is an essential leadership skill. As a director of operations, how do you decide what to delegate and what to keep in-house?

It's been a challenge for all of us COOs. We're control freaks. But anything that is a repetitive task that can be easily taught due to the repeated nature of the task should be offshored or by AI. Like word pay-off. Yeah.

Pre-processing data entry. I mean, anything that you do over and over and over again, that's pretty much the same offshore. My philosophy, and I'm sure you know this, we want our highly skilled title professionals to focus on client-facing activities, because everybody gets three, four hundred emails. And if you're doing everything, and if you're stuck ordering payoffs, stuck clearing title, then you don't have that time to really take care of the client. So I agree with you.

Anything that requires thorough examination, legal review, or money, we keep that stateside. Anything else can be offshored. What are some signs that a title agency or agent or manager is struggling with delegation? From my experience, if I look at an agency and I see that they've been doing the same thing for the last 15 years, there's no sign of growth or change within their operations. They don't know how to say no.

They're probably more reactive than proactive and they don't have time to grow or change. So I feel like that's kind of agencies that are afraid to delegate and they just like doing the same thing over and over again. They truly believe nobody can do it better, as good as them. Yeah, exactly. They're not open-minded to what else is out there.

And from my experience anybody if I look at an agency and I see that they're they've been doing the same thing for the last 15 years there's no sign of growth or change within their operations. They don't know how to say no They're probably more reactive than proactive and they don't have time to grow or change so I feel like that's kind of Agencies that are afraid to delegate and they just like doing the same thing over and over again today They and they truly believe nobody can do it better as good at them. Yeah, exactly They're not open-minded to what else is out there and they just take it upon themselves and that that's the old way thinking We need to change. Yeah, I mean I had that conversation multiple multiple times with different people in the past and it's like Will you it's like literally it's a progress you go you move up to three steps Then you once set back anymore three four steps and one step back. Well people make mistakes.

Yes. I mean, it'd be a Full thinking of these I mean perfect, but that's what a me higher whether it's onshore offshore same thing like a little you can have There's only one of you but it can can one of you can do more with that the part delegation and I'm gonna I'm gonna say AI but like I I thought I was the only person to do everything and I if I'm gone, how are they gonna do it? No I can put all my thoughts through an AI channel to put out on paper and an SOP and Provide that to whoever I'm training. So I think training has a huge piece in that too So we've been creating training libraries for years and we just continue to build those training libraries put everything up here you know in your brain on paper and that's gonna be I know you're Would do it what tool do you use for recording videos? I mean, that's one of the best thing delegates whatever you do Like that creates videos and nothing forget it the tool years.

I use loom and bomb bomb It depends if I want to show my face bomb bomb is a little is l o m.com. I guess right, but correct. Yep Great for training. So what what tools processes or systems do you rely on to manage the offshore team effectively? Well, we have a core task do lists and we do round-robin tasks through our title platform So a lot of the monitoring of task allocation and then we have morning huddles for accountability And then we also do weekly calls for each department to keep each other on track within each branch and region So the culture is very important as you know So one concern many agency owners have is maintaining company culture when working with offshore teams How do you show offshore step aligns with a company values and service standards?

I would say set the standard up front if you're gonna hire somebody make everything about your core values the hiring process the Questions the training the onboarding everything should be focused around your core values and that's how we do it I mean if you're on You know within the States we send you a welcome kit with our core values if you're offshore we make sure your training library and your hiring process is focused around those core values and then we include them in as many cultural Aspects as possible morning huddles with the branches employee shoutouts is not just for people here It's for people offshore to highlights in the newsletters good deeds or humility Just use them to collaborate like you'd be surprised how much of a goldmine People offshore have thoughts in their head like use them collaborate with them And that's all part of your core values is making them feel valued and involved. He's Lily's Truly integrated as part of the company. All right, so the instead of okay, they're do this Do that a thousand miles away kind of look at this in a like a robot kind of thing Yeah, see their face get on teams get off the zoom like make them a part of the process not just do this do that You know see it later So, how do you see offshore and evolving in the talent industry with next five years along with it, yeah, I know That as you know the main reason like we're very early adopters of offshore and it was up. Thanks to Mr. Kennedy, I think was a chairman of the board the first American He said at the one of their dinners and I was talking to him and what advice would he give me?

What do you see in the future and he literally mentioned offshore it? I'm a good Then I come dig in and like wow Then I just took that to heart and we started like about 10 years ago this process and gradually building Offshore team in supplement to our team here as you know, how how difficult it is to to find people here. Yeah Yeah, and everybody thinks that they're gonna lose their job, but that's not the case. Just like you said no We're supplementing any of the mundane tasks that you're wasting time and spending hours on following up on a payoff Really, you know, so anything any of those title tasks? I see pretty much everything even processing offshore The only three things that I think that we'll keep over here is that examining piece that attorney legal piece and the money piece?

But most everything else can be offshored successfully and also the customer service piece like though like the client facing like the scheduling the talk the conversations the Yeah, yeah So with AI and automation advanced and rapidly there you're not a big fans of AI Do you see them replacing offshore teams or today's supplement to accomplish each other? I think they're 100% gonna complement each other I mean and use the offshore team and all the knowledge you have to feed the AI engine I mean think it it's just gonna be a big wheel of everybody working together and symbiotically to get the successful Transaction to the closing table. So I think it's gonna be complementing each other The mess up as part of our tradition on this show What's a latest favorite quote? I'm going to say we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them And that's from Albert Einstein How about a favorite book you read recently? So I know Moe doesn't like this, but I don't read books.

I watch movies So I'm gonna say The Greatest Showman because it highlights the themes of challenging societal norms and Pursuing your dreams beyond beyond societal validation and that's what we're here at all tech trying to do every single day. That's awesome Well, thank you. Hope. Well, that's a wrap-up of an awesome conversation with a hope Ottaviani regarding the mystifying offshoring and the power of delegation so make sure to Give us a five-star review on our favorite podcast channel or on YouTube until next time Have a wonderful day. And that's a wrap on today's journey with Moe Shamil from the title agents podcast Reminding you that mastering the art of innovation is key and the title industries fast-paced world If you're finding it tough to keep up with the changes and challenges Remember, you're not alone.

Our calendar is open for you. Find the link in the show notes and let's connect Make sure to hit subscribe to not miss out on strategies that elevate and insights that empower together We'll navigate the future of the industry. I look forward to our next meeting in the upcoming episode