How to Build a Global Remote Title Team | Title Agents Podcast Ep68

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 Agent Podcast. Today I have Hope Ottaviani, Director of Operations at Alltech National Title.

We're going to discuss scaling without borders and how Alltech National Title built a global remote title team that supports the U.S.-based team. Welcome, Hope. Hi, everybody. Glad to be here. So Hope, when you first started building out Alltech National Title remote and offshore operations, what challenges or opportunities were you solving for?

I was solving for getting us on the same page with mainly COVID to start, if you want to be honest. When the COVID pandemic happened, we had to quickly work without skipping a beat. And we were able to do that pretty well with, you know, we were able to send printers home and everybody was able to work remotely and recording was online. So we were able to solve that problem pretty quickly and work remotely. The problem is we didn't want to give it up, right?

When the COVID pandemic, you know, passed and we kept that remote ideology for people working from home, and it's worked pretty successfully thus far. But we've had a remote operation team for almost 10 years now before COVID. And I mean, COVID accelerated that progress or process. It accelerated everybody. So the fact that everybody had to get on board kind of helped us move what we were waiting on, you know, the e-signings, the RON, the e-recordings, everybody started getting on board, which made it a lot easier.

What was the moment you realized global remote talent could actually enhance Alltech National Service and not just reduce costs? Because it was really, it was never about cost. Cost was secondary. It's what I always say. Yeah, yeah.

And it's funny because using people offshore, there's a lot of talent. So I don't care where they're coming from. If they've got innate talent that I can mold and grow and build on, I'm going to grab them from our team as quickly as possible and show them the ATG way, show them our core values. So the fact that we weren't just, you know, stuck here locally, you know, only here's your area. Here's where you have to hire.

No, we were able to go beyond and offshore and grab talent globally. And that has helped us enhance our automation, our workflows, and the way we do business. And I know things have been tough the last couple of years, but if everybody remembers like 19, 20, 21, it was insanely competitive. You couldn't really bind people to hire or need talent and it was very restrictive. You want to hire a specific geography to make it even more difficult.

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Visit alltechnationaltitle.com or DM us today to start the conversation. Yeah, I agree. It was really tough to find people locally, especially without having that entitled behavior we all kind of deal with as challenges of that local hire approach. But going offshore and finding those people with, some of them know three or four languages. Some of them know they've got master's degrees.

And that's what I want to do is build more leaders, build more people who are smarter than me because that's going to augment your company. It's going to improve the way you do business. So how do you approach setting expectations and KPIs for remote preprocessors, data entry, title clearing, all the different divisions? Well, I've got to break it into chunks first. I know you taught me that was, if you look at a whole or a big picture and there's a lot of stuff coming at you, a lot of data.

So I break it into chunks. I look at the department first, and then I say, well, what do they do? What's the milestone of tasks that they handle, that they're accountable for every day? Then we break it into how do we measure that to manage it? And then you can get those key performance indicators.

Well, this person does open order, well, we need to know how quickly they're doing it, how accurate they're doing it, how many they're doing. So then you move on to the next department. All right, so this person is a title examiner, that's going to be a little different than order opening. So you really got to break it into chunks, which is going to help you then form that big puzzle, the big picture. So how does accountability look like across different time zones?

Not only in the US, we have a different time zone, but also like a global time zone. Yeah, I'm a huge advocate of tasks. And I know it's hard, people have that mindset where, oh, I've been doing this for 30 years, I already know what I'm doing. But if you're going to scale and you're going to move globally, you need to have tasks and everybody has to have that accountability chart, those accountability milestone tasks assigned to them. And then with the system or the title platform you have, you can have auto triggers that auto complete those tasks based on movement in the file.

So it's really getting that right platform, having those set milestones per department, and then you can start automating and get those tasks completed a lot easier. Because that's what people see, they're like, oh my God, I've got 40 tasks. Now I've got to, you know, complete all of them. Well, if you're doing the right movement, the system will auto complete them for you. There's priority, not all tasks are equal and some are due today, some are due tomorrow.

So 40 may seem overwhelming, but how many are due today? Breaking into chunks, exactly. Like if you're just working on this part of the file, then focus on just that part. If you look at all the tasks at one, of course it looks overwhelming. You got to break it into departments, into tasks.

How did you train the leadership team to manage remotely without micromanaging, if that makes any sense? I know, it's again, tasks are huge, but the system helped us too, and the way we communicate is different. I can't just yell down the hallway. I can't just, you know, talk to them in person, hey, come to my office, let's chat. No, I had to constantly live by my calendar.

So I would set reminders to follow up with my leadership and I would have them do the same. Hey, I'm following up with you, you're my direct report. You need to follow up with your team once a week. We also do company morning huddles with the entire global, like we do it from over offshore and we do it onshore. And we always do that 9.30 AM every morning, East Coast.

And then just Zoom meetings, follow-ups. I even reach out if I know somebody has been shining bright, I as the COO reach out to that person and they may feel like it's random, but just saying simple thank you can do wonders. So just noticing, recognition, using the system and living by your calendar. This podcast is made possible by our sponsor. You have worked so hard to build your business.

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I think repetition and again, communication, like core values, for example. Our core values are everywhere. We have it in our signature blocks. We reiterate it in the meetings. The way we interview is based on our core values.

So I think it's just, if you say it once, it's not going to stick. If you say it twice, it's not going to stick. But if you just, it's always there. It's in your emails. It's in the system.

It's in the meetings. It's part of your platform. I think that's huge, is just constant communication and living by your calendar to remind you to constantly communicate. I do it often. Like, hey, remember to tell these people about what KPI is they're accountable for every month.

What are some of the key core values that you kind of buy? Yeah. So we have five, but the technology, personal and professional growth, innovation kind of goes with the technology, which I love because ever since I've been here in 2011, I feel like we've always been ahead of the curve with Mo's, you know, way of thinking. So technology, innovation, humility, charitable, giving back to the community, win together, earn together, like teamwork. So those are just a few that we live by.

Can you share a story from a remote team, either in Morocco or Philippines, that shows how does this model works very well? I think we have teams in Morocco and the Philippines, correct? Maybe India as well? Yeah, we got teams. We got teams.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we've always been ahead of the curve with Mo's way of thinking. So technology, innovation, humility, charitable, giving back to the community, win together, earn together, like teamwork.

So those are just a few that we live by. Can you share a story from a remote team, either in Morocco or Philippines, that shows how does this model works very well? I think we have teams in Morocco and the Philippines, correct? Maybe India as well? Yeah, we got teams everywhere.

But like one of the ladies that I work closely with, she has always been a leader, kind of like my backbone. And I think it's all about who you have in those leadership positions too, to kind of keep that core value, that vision going, because I'm not there in person offshore. So you have to find that right person who's an extension of you. I don't think you've ever left the US as of yet. I have not, I have not.

So it's funny that I've never even gone and seen these teams in person. And yet here we are, it's what, five to six years later, maybe even longer, and the teams are flourishing. They've got the vision, they live the vision, they bleed the vision. And how do we do that? It's just constant communication and finding that right person who's gonna be an extension of you and the face of the company overseas.

So how do you celebrate wins and build camaraderie remotely? And I will keep harping. We just literally wanna kind of open the title agents' minds, especially the ones that have been resistant, to kind of letting go and kind of hiring remote, either here in the US or offshore. I mean, we're not pushing either. Yeah, again, constant communication.

But I love, again, those touches. You have to constantly touch. 15 years I've been here, I never think that I'm too good or I'm too busy or I'm too, I'm doing a lot of stuff, but I still send a coffee to somebody randomly in Maryland. I still send a lunch to somebody in Texas because I notice. So you have to keep your eyes open.

I know there's a big picture, the company's moving forward, but you can't forget about the people who are helping you to move forward. So I have my direct reports, that's great. We have less than 100 employees, that's great, but I never forget anybody. And I always, you know, shout outs are great. Incentives are wonderful too, but you'd be surprised how more impactful a simple thank you and a notice or recognition to somebody for doing something awesome, like taking a few files over that somebody who left.

I mean, just something small. It's coming from management means a lot. Let's move to my favorites, innovation. How can we innovate and use technology? What tech stack or communication tools have been most critical to connecting all tech's team and clients and vendors?

We use Microsoft Teams a lot for our company morning huddles and our chats, even our Halloween flyer, we disperse that through our Microsoft Teams channel. The leadership team, we use Slack, so that's been a good way to kind of consolidate the- I'm favorite. I know it's his favorite, especially, because emails are overwhelming, let's be honest. I mean, all of us get 500 plus a day and it's mainly transactional, but for leadership, that's different communication, different conversations, you wanna keep that separate. So use a different platform for your direct reports.

Bloom Growth, amazing. We love the EOS platform on accountability. What is that? Can you explain? EOS, it's an Entrepreneurial Operating System.

Correct, and we just started it a couple of years ago, maybe within the last three years, but I have kept that going consistently every week. And it's a platform that allows us to kind of create channels, create meetings, and create accountability charts. It'll allow you to create these KPIs per department, closing ratio, open orders, closed orders, and then track them with color coding, red, great, bad, green, good, every week. And then you can create milestones and quarterly goals. We call them ROCs with the EOS platform, but it just keeps you guys on track.

Like you've gotta keep that needle moving forward every time of the day. Have there been any surprising workflow improvements that came from going remote? I would say the fact that we're remote, I was able to really enhance our automation and the smart action triggers. Because when you go remote, and even nationally or globally, there's different transaction types that you don't know, different areas you don't know. So we had to learn, and instead of having boots on the ground somebody telling us what to do, we learned and then we implemented what we learned in the system by a smart action trigger.

So every time we have a transaction in that area or township, a trigger would pop up with a document list of what we learned on the last transaction. So really it's like, you don't have to have that boots on the ground, it's helpful, but you'll learn, the underwriters will help you, the resources will help you, and then you just implement those smart action triggers, which has been crucial for me in all the areas in 39 states that we're in. Every transaction we have, I learn, I implement, and I add it as a trigger. You know how I feel about AI, and I think the whole world knows how I feel about AI. Can you imagine once that's get kind of another layer over automation was gonna look like and how really kind of enhance that experience and really free up our talented team here to kind of pay attention to clients and make their life even easier?

Yeah, I will say I'm really excited about the AI piece. I mean, even Microsoft Outlook, all of those pieces are now having like add-ons of the AI piece, and even our title platforms are starting to do it as well. And with that addition, I can only imagine how it's gonna help your team, your operations staff. And when I say that, I mean, like right now, if you get emails, you get Connect invitation, you get Qualia invites, you get communication through six different platforms. It's a lot coming at you.

The AI will be able to consolidate, so you can ask AI, what did I miss on this closing? It'll tell you, hey, this communication came in from this platform. So it should be able to consolidate all the communication in a few platforms, and I think that's gonna help kind of streamline the way we communicate. You're talking about like, I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but we have to use Outlook. Yeah.

But what I love that feature, we can summarize the conversation. Somebody like adds me to an email chain has like 40 back and forth. Oh yeah. Like the people don't have the kind of the awareness or the mind or the awareness to kind of, hey, fill you in on, instead of to go back and read the like 40 points. But if now it's amazing as a co-pilot, just click a button, summarize, gives you all, it's incredible.

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If you can't produce images or visuals or bubble charts, get bullet points because we could be, I could be on a three-hour meeting and that's fine for me. But if I need to give you high-level bullet points, boom, co-pilot, customize, there you go. Yeah, you know my reading level. So it's not a- Yep, elementary. Lessons and advice.

What didn't work early on? How did you adjust on that, going remote and more specifically, more the offshore team. We had that since 2016, 2015 when we started. Yeah, right when I started managing too. And it's like, so we started it pretty much together.

And I think the one thing that didn't work was having cookie cutter kind of workflow, like one size fits all or that one person. Like we would assign all administrative duties, all payoffs to that one person. And as you scale and grow, it's not scalable. You've got to automate, you've got to include other teams, roles, round robin tasks in the platform you have. You have a group of three and then you have round robin tasks.

So it just automatically gives out caseloads that are more even so that you don't have to manage it. The system will do it for you. That's been huge. But early on, it was just, I was thinking this person can do everything. And then we grew nationally.

Cookie cutter didn't work. The one person didn't work. I had to think outside the box. I had to think quickly. Yeah, national residential resale, commercial resale is a different beast.

Refinance, easy, but purchase is so many different nuances. Way different. Customs, local customs, laws, regulations, and so much. It's like a firehose kind of thing. Yes, and especially the municipalities when you start getting into the attorney states or in Pennsylvania or Maryland, you've got all these different townships that are their own areas.

Like Houston and San Antonio, totally different. Like you got to learn all of those and quickly and pretty efficiently. So use the system, smart action triggers and roles round robin tasks. What advice would you give to another title agency owners or managers considering offshore or hybrid operations right now? I would focus on the pre-processing first.

That's kind of how we started. So instead of again, looking at it as, oh, this is too big, where do I even start? Break it into chunks and maybe start like with, here's your streamlined workflow. What's the first thing you do? Order open.

Okay, so focus on that. Let's focus on order open. Then you assign the tasks. What's mundane tasks? Put a little whiteboard together.

What are the small tasks that you can offshore automate? Then you kind of minimize that into the departments. Then you can. or hybrid operations right now? I would focus on the pre-processing first.

That's kind of how we started. So instead of, again, looking at it as, oh, this is too big, where do I even start? Break it into chunks and maybe start like with, here's your streamlined workflow. What's the first thing you do? Order open.

Okay, so focus on that. Let's focus on order open. Then you assign the tasks. What's mundane tasks? You know, put a little whiteboard together.

What are the small tasks that you can offshore automate? Then you kind of minimize that into the departments. Then you can decide, okay, these three departments, I want to offshore, everything else stays onshore. But then you break it up into instead of looking at it a whole picture, and then you can kind of look at those task milestones and offshore the easy ones. Today's episode is sponsored by.

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You want them to do a high level of skills, high level duties and tasks, so they can focus on the customer experience, which is more important than anything else at the end of the day. I couldn't agree more. And we have had people like that who are just so skilled and experienced, and they, I know a lot of our operations team, they're kind of control freaks. They've done it, you know, this is how I've done it for 30 years. But it's like, when you look at it, oh, you know, opening an order only takes two minutes.

Add 30 of those two minutes, you know, it's like a death by a thousand cuts. Like, you're spending all those 30 minutes, you got to do a staffing metric. All those 30 minutes and all those order opens, that's not way to scale. You've got to offshore the easy stuff. Heck, AI is now doing order entry, and they're doing, you know, contract rating and stuff like that.

That can minimize your time twofold, right? That's going to be a lot. And then you can focus on the bigger pieces of the transaction, like the CSATs, the customer satisfaction, the client face, going to the closing table, you know, reaching out to the opposing agent, getting those transactions to you. So it's just missed opportunity. That's awesome.

I know we use our friends at Safi Virtual. This is not a plug. This is not an advertisement. It's more, this is a company we've been using for the last 10 years. And how would people connect with you?

Do they want to kind of have questions or? I mean, give me a call or shoot me an email. I mean, we've used Safi Virtual for years now, and I could not be happier. I've been with the company for 15 years. I've seen it grow.

I've been in four different programs and platforms. And I will tell you, today where we at, is I'm able to do so much more as a COO. I mean, considering all that I'm doing, I'm able to do it because of the AI and the automations, 200 plus smart action triggers that we've been able to implement. So, I mean, if you want to reach out to me, give me a call, shoot me an email. I can, I don't know if it should provide it here on the Hope, H-O-P-E.

Yeah, we'll add it to the notes. But yeah, I loved, as you can tell, I'm passionate about creating these workflows and automation. It's what I started at in 2011. They had just gone paperless. I have never worked a paper file.

I will tell you that now. I've never worked a paper file. And I owe it all to the company and Moe because right when I started, I only know digital and I only knew paperless, which is great. I remember the story of a lot of resistance early on about it going paperless. And I had to stop ordering folder files.

Look, we're not buying any more buckets. That's quite a thing. There's no more folders left to use. And that's so funny. It boggles my mind when people still, because I never worked that way.

And so I think I'd be, I'm the perfect person to lead and kind of train on this because I, this is all I know, you know? So I don't know the paper files, but it boggles my mind when people still print stuff. I'm like, print? Even checks boggle my mind. Well, Hope, thank you so much though.

That was very insightful and have a wonderful day. See you in the next episode. See you next episode. 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 in the title industry's 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.