Derek Gallimore | Outsource Everything (Including the Driving of Your Oil Tanker)

Audio Transcription

On today’s business coaching show, the serial entrepreneur, Derek Gallimore shares with us how you can outsource everything, including the driving of your oil tanker. What? Yes, you can even outsource the driving of your oil tanker

This guy is a series entrepreneur who is actually seen the highs and the lows of the entrepreneurial journey as few half. He’s, he’s built a $20 million business and then has seen it all come crumbling down. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome onto the business coaching show. Mr Derek Gallimore. Derek, how are you sir?

Hi clay, I’m fantastic and super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Wait, there’s, you’ve obviously had a lot of success with your career, but I’d like to start off at the very beginning. Tell us about the beginning or at the very bottom of your career. What was life like growing up for you and, and, uh, when did you decide what you wanted to do?

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. I had an incredible upbringing. My parents were fantastic. They were so incredibly supportive. Um, I was born in the UK, raised in New Zealand by English parents. Uh, and, and, you know, I, I couldn’t complain, but they were what they call themselves working class. And they never really encouraged entrepreneurial-ism, uh, you know, and sort of starting businesses, which seems so popular these days. So, you know, I was the, it was sort of expected of me that I would go safe, get a safe Korea, get a safe qualification and things like that. And I remember feeling very early on that, that really wasn’t just for me. So I took a slightly different path and it’s been an incredible path. Yeah. But, uh, but certainly a lot of, uh, you know, um, a lot of hard work and a lot of rollercoaster around to with it.

Now we told the listeners, when we started the show that did to you bootstrapped and started a $20 million business, what was that business and, and how did you build it?

Yeah, I mean, just to go back a little bit better. I was 24 years old when I bought my first investment property in central London. I’d just been backpacking for about a year and I was able to, to get the, the funds for that. Uh, and then within about sort of, uh, six years, I had built a property portfolio of about $50 billion and isn’t to gloat or to both, but effectively I caught a very good period at the tail end of a property boom in London. Uh, as that began to slow down, I moved into a synergistic kind of business, which was the service departments or corporate housing. Uh, and that was in 2009, which was the same year that Airbnb was beginning. So I built that to about 250 apartments in central Blunden and zone one London, uh, over about the next eight, nine years. Then that became about 20 million revenues annually with the, you know, we had about, uh, 85 staff across two countries.

So how did it all come crumbling down at somebody gets such good momentum and like you had, you know, been diligently working at this. What happened or what caused ed the, the whole thing to collapse for you?

Yeah, I mean I had incredible momentum. I was on a run, you know, and, and uh, I buy sort of 30 then hours by [inaudible] highly successful young guy. Um, we really, it was the convergence of a few things, but effectively Airbnb, and not to blame Airbnb, but they basically flooded the London market with a huge amount of stock. And what we found is, you know, carrying a 250 apartments, basically the top line revenues that we got per dollar of rent paid, let’s say, um, effectively reduced by 50%. So, you know, there was just massive margin compression. Meanwhile, the, uh, the OTAs, the online travel agents like booking.com and Airbnb, they were getting more powerful. So they were charging more, uh, in commissions. And so I saw this perfect storm coming of decreasing topline and increasing, ah, costs, which is so decreasing margins and it really became really tough really quickly. Um, you know, looking back now, it was really, you know, you learn incredible lessons. Um, but it was certainly hard at the time.

What was the lowest low point for you where you thought, Holy crap, this cannot be happening. What was the part where [inaudible] do you remember there? Was there a specific moment where you vividly can remember thinking just how did I get here?

Yeah, a lot. You know, you do a lot of reflecting, uh, you, but it wasn’t one specific Titanic moment, I don’t think, you know, and funnily enough, the hard work was before the business shutdown that it was about 18 months of intense, intense work, pivoting, you know, trying to keep the morale of the staff. Hi, I’m trying to figure out what to do, try to look at new sort of mini business models, um, and just really scrambling and also within that period, being as efficient as you possibly could with every dollar that you had, you know? And there was an extended period. I was working kind of, you know, 12 to 18 hour days. And I realized, wow, this is super tough. It’s really, you know, it’s hard working hard when you’ve got a good business coaching goal to get towards, but it’s really hard working hard when you’re hemorrhaging money every day is worse than the last, you know? And that carries on for 18 months. And I was like, wow, you know, this is, this is a test.

So how did you go from being at, at the bottom of that test and trial to getting back up to the top? Now I need to tell the business coaching listeners what, what you’re doing now and how you, how you recovered from that devastating series of losses.

Yeah, I mean, it was hard and to be honest, I’m still not back to where I was at my peak, I suppose you could say, uh, after the 18 months of really tough work trying to turn this thing around, I was actually relieved because I closed the business. Uh, it was tough, but then I felt that I could have a bit of space again and I could move on. And within about two weeks I got my entrepreneurial juices back and I was beginning to be creative again and I was excited about new ventures and you know, to my advantage, I still had a little bit of cash left because of my previous property portfolio, although I had lost literally millions and the vast majority of my, of my network. So, you know, I was very much starting from the beginning. Now what I evolved into, you know, I had been in the Philippines for um, about, uh, five or six years by then we had a back office in the Philippines and outsourcing is one of the biggest industries in the Philippines, um, which is basically the back office functions for Western businesses.

This is an incredible industry and there was no aggregator platform for that. And unlike this, you know, there is a huge calling for this. There is a huge need for this. So I actually came from my previous industry, which was hotels, uh, accommodation and travel. And as you know, there are thousands of aggregator platforms representing these industries. People will go to a book note column or it go to [inaudible] or Skyscanner. And there wasn’t one platform representing this incredibly powerful outsourcing industry. So, you know, that was born out of my lessons from the uh, hospitality industry that I was previously in and, um, that outsource accelerator, which is now our aggregated platform.

So what, what kind of a, um, practical things could our listeners, uh, business owners could, could outsource to you guys? I mean, do you see, do you help sign a, connect them with the companies and individuals that do the, do the outsourced work or, or tell us how you help business owners?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, first of all, we are committed to just building awareness and education about what outsourcing is. In its simplest form, outsourcing is really just employment. Uh, but you are utilizing the, the abundance skills and cheaper salaries that are out there in the Philippines. So, you know, if you’re an employer and you have staff, then you can get staffing at about 70% less than what you are paying in the U S or UK or Canada and things like that. These are highly qualified people, highly committed people, and the work would be produced at at least the same quality. Now, if people come onto our platform, they can look around. We list about 700 outsourcing suppliers on the platform. Um, we have about 5,000 pages of content. We have hundreds of videos, we also have our own podcasts. Um, so people can just learn about outsourcing, they can browse. Um, and of course then we can also help them find, uh, whatever resources they need, whether that’s an out sourcing supplier, whether they need a fully, um, managed solution for their business and whether it’s one person or they need a hundred people, um, you know, we can help them with that solution.

What kind of services or what kind of solutions can you outsource now? I mean, accounting, bookkeeping, photo editing, video editing, and what, what kind of stuff could you outsource with today’s technology?

Absolutely. You know, it’s incredible. It’s really, the list is limited to what you can’t outsource. Uh, basically anything that you can do in front of a computer, which is now most things, um, can be outsourced. You know, we of course do all of the bookkeeping, accounting, marketing, sales, uh, web development, um, you know, basic administration, VA services. But we also do, um, you know, the Philippines has now renowned for, uh, post editing for Hollywood movies, all of the CGI, a lot of the uh, animation. So you get incredible creative talent here. We also have PhDs, we have science doctorates. So if you’re doing any chemical engineering that can also be done here. And we have people, you know, sitting in vanilla officers, they are Navy sea captain trained and they are steering tankers in the middle of the ocean. What that is from an office in Manila. We also have people that are looking at Danish satellite dishes. They are optimizing the location of the satellite dish and they are tweaking the satellite dish by half a degree. So mobile signal can be enhanced. You know, there is no limit now to what you could do, uh, from the Philippines or basically from in front of the computer.

Did you just say that there are people from the Philippines who are captaining Navy vessels?

Absolutely. Absolutely. We can show you through training facilities. Um, you know, it’s incredible. Now, you know, you talked about autonomous vehicles and cars and things like that. These tankers, I mean they’re big, but they, they, you know, they pretty much go on a straight line and all of the coordinates are up in the satellites and up in the spaceships. So you know, you can, it’s incredible now what you can do remotely. And you know, coming back to the more sort of standard business requirement, there are very few tasks that really cannot be outsource. And what I said have been poor people to do is just consider looking at this and it’s not so that you save money so that you’re laying off staff. It’s actually so that you can build your business and be proactive with your clients instead of reactive because your human resource costs so much.

So you’re saying though that there’s a guy right now I struggled to move on sometimes. So there was a guy right now who is sitting at a computer with like a joystick or some kind of device and he is steering a massive Navy or a massive sea bearing vehicle. A huge tanker of some sort.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the Philippines has a uh, seat bearing history that, you know, as you might know, they, um, they staff a lot of the oil rig, they staff a lot of the cruise liners, um, a lot of the merchant Navy. Um, and you know, this, this uh, balls, this progressors and of course ships really aren’t steered by a big steering wheel anymore. It’s all computers. And you know, these, these ships are being guided by a satellite. And so why do you need to be on the ship? You know, and these big tank, I don’t know a lot about this issue, but ferries, tankers have very few staff on them now because so much can be done remotely. And of course they do have staff on there. Um, but you know, the majority of work now in steering a tank, it can be done remotely.

Wow. Okay. Okay. I promise I’ll, I’ll move on now. I know for a while I got kind of lost in there and that’s a wild one. So now if I go, um, to your website here, let’s say that I’m enlisting right now and I’m like, Oh, I kinda wanna have outsource a Palooza. I’m, I’m, I’m wanting to help

everything. We add polos that man.

Um, once I go up there, how much money do you make money per hour. Like if I pay a guy in the Philippines, X number of dollars per hour, do you make a little business coaching commission on that or you make it a little connection fee? I mean, how do you a, you know, how do you, what did you make the money? How do you make [inaudible]

whatever. You all got to make money though. How do you make money? How do you make money? Okay, look, look, the, the, the first thing that is very clear is, uh, no one in outsourcing should really make a commission from the salary. That should be a pass through cost. All of the staff salary and contribution should be completely transparent. But beyond that, with employment, as you know, in the U S or anywhere in the world, there’s a lot about the costs. There’s the office space, there’s the operational management, there is the hiring and the legal legal entity that basically keeps them employed and compliant with the very pro labor, um, regulations here in the Philippines. So, you know, we, um, effectively what there is is there’s a salary component, then there’s a facilities and management component. All of this is very transparent and we can do those at costs. Um, so then effectively on top there is a small management fee and you know, that is somewhere between, uh, between about 50 cents and a dollar all in. Okay. So, you know, there’s, there’s three core components. One of them is their salary, the brace is the facilities, and then there’s a management fee if they want that management fee.

You are, you are a mind expander, my friend. You are, you are blowing my mind. Where are you physically located right now? Are you, are you actually in my office right now? And if someone from the Philippines doing this interview right now,

you never know. It is never know. I am in Manila, I am in the, it’s almost like the Mecca for outsourcing. And you know, I am, I’m just so passionate about this. And you know, it, it can be a little bit controversial at times. People are losing jobs. You know, I think that’s somewhat sometimes detached from reality. Most of America now has the lowest unemployment rates ever. You know, what has happened to this automation that’s taking jobs that the, you know, foreigners are taking jobs. Most of America is now at the lowest, um, employment rate together. There are many businesses in America that cannot get the staff that they need. There are businesses in Japan that are declaring bankruptcy because they cannot get staffing. And you know, the Philippines has, it is the third largest English speaking world in a, sorry, the largest English speaking country in the world. And they produce about 650,000 graduates a year, university graduates. And you can get a highly qualified, fantastic, dedicated, committed person for for base salary of about 500 us dollars per month. You know, and this is just a huge opportunity, not only for the Philippines but the Western world to get the resources that they need to build their business and serve their clients.

Is your new slogan going to be our source accelerator.com where you two can outsource the driving of your oil tanker? Is that you’re gonna be your new slogan that aren’t changing it today? Oh my gosh. Okay. So I have a couple of final questions for, I want to, I want to ask you about here. Um, you’re having a lot of success as an entrepreneur, um, but I think a lot of people want to know that one of our listeners want to know the mechanics that allow you to become successful, your daily schedule, your daily habits, your daily rituals. How do you organize the first four hours of each day? Like what does that look like the first four hours of each day?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, with the time difference that we are recording, this is actually 6:00 AM my time. So we’re a little bit into my morning routine, but typically, um, you know, and I, I don’t know if this starts to sound a little bit cliche now, but I get up, I meditate. Um, and then I go and exercise. I also drink a liter of water. All right. Do very gentle exercise for about the first 45 minutes of the day. I’m lucky enough to have a sauna up within my facilities. I have a swimming pool and I basically do some walking, sort of super light exercise. Then, you know, after the meditation and that process, that’s about an hour and a half after I’ve waken up. Um, I then have my main meal for the day, um, which is, you know, a little bit unexciting. Um, and then I’m super excited to go to the coffee shop and have my coffee for the day, which is probably the highlight of my day. And that’s where I start work in a nice environment. Um, I spend about an hour there and then I come home to get into the gritty work.

You said you have your meal of the day. Are you, are you implying Derek Gillan Gilmore that you are having one meal a day?

Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m on the whole keto thing, which again, I don’t want to sound too cliche with this, but yes, I’m, you know, KIDOgenic and, and intimate fasting. So I have a really big meal at about six 45 in the morning with a lot of fats and oils. And then I have a small meal, um, at about 11 o’clock, um, which is three X and a coffee and that’s it. So

what’s your big meal? What’s your, what’s your big meal? What does that consist of?

Uh, it’d be tons of vegetables and a protein. So maybe like a stair fry vegetable with chicken or a salad with chicken, uh, and tons of tons of oils, tons of good fats on top of that.

Well, I’ll tell you what, you, you are sounding right now. Like you’re looking great. That’s how your sound right now.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I’m feeling great. It is amazing. It is amazing. And also, you know, coming back to the, the kind of hardship thing, what I learned in the hard times, it’s you really got to look after your foundation, you know? And actually when things are going tough, I doubled down on the discipline and the basics. Um, because otherwise you can, you, you know, the, this, this journey can destroy you. So I, you know, I try and look after the foundations.

No, I have, uh, two final questions for you. Then I’ll let you get back to, uh, uh, outsourcing the driving of tankers, oil tankers. Uh, what advice would you give to our listeners out there? Do you have like a certain, you know, a pithy quote or a specific move or, you know, something where you say listeners out there, if you want to make your life better, do this

or, well, you know, I’m not good at quotes or jokes, but one thing that sticks in my head is when I was a young boy, I was watching Oprah Winfrey inadvertently. And, um, the guest was saying, who would you be if you weren’t so afraid? You know, and I think it’s a fantastic, uh, empowering concept of, you know, what is holding us back? What are we doing because we’re scared or afraid or what have we been entering into? I’m sorry. I tend to look at things from that perspective. Who would you be if you weren’t so afraid?

Now, if I’m out there and I, I’m afraid of outsourcing, I mean, I kind of want to look into it, but I’m like, ah, I don’t know. I mean, what if, you know, I just, I’m a, I want, I wanna I want to do it, but I don’t, I’m afraid. What’s the best way for someone to put their toe into the water of outsourcing and your outsource accelerator to see if it’s right for them?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I am so stern on this. You have to look into this. You don’t have to do it of course. But as an employer, as you know, we are going like globalization is happening at break neck speed. Technology is changing. You have to explore this for your business or you are at risk of losing your business. Um, just look into it. Every business, I believe there are 40 million small and medium size businesses in the West, of which virtually none of them outsource versus the fortune 500 or fortune 1000 companies, 99% of those companies outsource. Now, where is the competitive advantage there? All of the small, small and medium sized businesses aren’t even looking into this. And the big guys have been doing it 25 years. Now the technology is there, the industry is 25 years old and it’s highly sophisticated and it’s now very flexible and accepting of small and medium size businesses. So my challenge to people is just explore this. It isn’t as scary as you think. It is much easier to get started and it is so much more rewarding, you know, and people want, they start outsourcing their companies blossom. Um, they, you know, grow their staffing numbers. Uh, and it’s a super exciting journey.

So, uh, what is the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you? Is there a certain website you want to direct everybody to or if they want to learn more, where’s the place that you would direct all of our listeners to go to today?

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Craig. So it is AppSource accelerator.com and if they want they can get free quotes from us, which is outsource accelerator.com/quote and you know if they want to reach out to me it is [email protected] and that is D R E. K.

well I, I can tell you this, I, I appreciate you taking the time to hop on today’s show and not outsourcing and not that it would be a bad idea to outsource your interview to somebody in the Philippines. But I appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re having a lot of success helping a lot of people and I do appreciate you for taking the time to educate our listeners and uh, I hope you have an incredible day, my friend.

No, thank you so much Graham. When you, when you get an oil tanker, let me know and we can help you.

All right. That that’s a deal. Hey, you care. [inaudible]

now without any further ed do three

We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage eight months ago, and in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. Um, we have been blessed with the fact that we, right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. And clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision when you dream big, big things happen and if you need business coaching, do not hesitate to call them.