E254: Two Years in with Mia, Our Philippines Office Director

Avid listeners would have heard me mention Mia, our PH office director, in this podcast time and again. She is our rock and, through dedication and impressive skills, has single-handedly grown our team from one or two VAs to 9 full-time employees.

Mia made her debut on the podcast on episode 142. Back then, she and I talked about her experience with transitioning from a virtual assistant to a managerial role, and how the team she’s formed has been doing.  

Two years later, we’ve got more people on board and looking to add some new talent to the roster. I caught up with her again to chat about the biggest changes that have happened to date. These include:

• Changes to the organizational structure – employees are now working on dedicated brands
• The ColorIt sale and its impact
• Letting go of three employees on the same day due to performance issues

Tune in to the full episode for a glimpse into Mia’s headspace as she navigates the Philippine team through all the new and exciting things in store for the company this year and beyond.

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If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Full Audio Transcript

Intro: This is Mike and welcome to Episode #254 of the EcomCrew Podcast. So glad to have you guys along with us today. I did mention last episode that we released this new book, Amazon Domination, you can go to EcomCrew.com/book to learn more about that. I don't want to take a whole bunch more time on this episode to talk about that because if you listened to last episode, I went on for a couple minutes about it. But if you're interested in our new free plus shipping offer, whenever applies the EcomCrew, head over to EcomCrew.com/book to get a copy of our new book. 

It is 100% free of charge, just pay the shipping and handling, the same model that we've used for our e-commerce businesses, we're now applying it to EcomCrew, and we're really excited about it. We think it's a great book. All right, enough about that. Today, we have the one and only Mia from the Philippines office on the podcast with us. While I was in the Philippines, I recorded a series of podcasts that we're going to do, this episode and the next two talking with various members of our team. And I wanted to start with Mia on this episode. 

If you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you guys know how I feel about Mia. She is our rock in the Philippines office. If it weren't for her, there would be no Philippines office. I would be a much more miserable person. We probably would have a much smaller team; it’d be a much smaller business. She's just been amazing. And I do my best to let her know that every chance I get. She is definitely awesome. She's put together an amazing team. I feel like I've had very little to do with it except telling her my vision and she's taken it from there. 

So I just wanted to have a chit chat with her about a few things while I was in the Philippines office. So I was there with her in the room, which was pretty cool. I'll try to do this annually to get the team members on the podcast. So today it's just a conversation with Mia talking about a few things. I think you guys will enjoy just the insights that things that I'm thinking about, things that she was thinking about, where the teams have come the last year, I think you guys are going to enjoy this. So if you do have any questions or comments, you can go to EcomCrew.com/254 to get to the show notes for this. And again, don't forget that URL for the book guys, EcomCrew.com/book. All right on with the show, let's talk to Mia.

Mike: This is Mike and welcome to this edition of the EcomCrew Podcast. So glad to have you guys along with us today and hello again from Cebu in the Philippines. We’ve made a lot of content since being here, excited for you guys to listen to all that. But before leaving, I'm on my last day of the trip, which has been just about two weeks. It's been full of fun, exciting adventures; I got sick along the way unfortunately as well. There was a little bug at the office so I had to deal with that, but I feel a little bit better now but wanted to record an episode much to Mia’s dismay with Mia one on one. Mia is the first person I hired in the Philippines. 

Actually, it wasn't the first person, that's a lie. But she was the first person as a part of this team. We had hired some other people before her who didn't do as good of a job. And I was starting to second guess my whole tactic of actually having an office and a team here in the Philippines or anybody working for me in the Philippines. But just bad luck of the draw I guess, and now that I've kind of been hiring people here in the Philippines and we have a team, I realized that it's you get what you put out of it obviously. You get out of it, what you put into it. And it's definitely hard to find the top tier employees. I think we just got extremely lucky with Mia in terms of luck of the draw. 

And because we've had her, she's been able to keep that standard here in the office. So she has been on the podcast with us before. We did this last year. So we'll put that episode in the show notes. And I just wanted to do a follow up, a one year later with Mia, what's changed here, where things are going, how she feels. I can't leave the room so she can't tell you honestly how she feels but mostly how she feels. But I think that this will be a good opportunity for you guys out there listening to kind of understand what it's like being in her head space and what she deals with here on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, because she's doing quite a bit. 

Most of her job these days, or at least half has turned into managing these people and spending time trying to make them do a better job and helping them with their careers and dealing with their personal issues and their leave request and things of that nature, which I don't want to deal with. And we've talked about pretty candidly, I want her to just deal with all that. I want nothing to do with it. I'm at a point where I just– I know how to do it; I'm not very good at it. It makes me miserable when I am doing it. So having Mia there as an interface between all that has been awesome for me. And it also is great for our employees because they get the attention that they need and deserve and Mia is there to continue to help further their career. 

So let's get into it with Mia here and get her on the podcast. I appreciate her doing this. Again I know that everyone here is a little shy. So it's hard to get them to want to be on the podcast. We just got to do a webinar while we were here. So I think this is tame compared to having to do a webinar where you're on camera. But Mia, first of all, I guess how have things been since we were here last time? What's been happening in this office? From your perspective, how have things been over the last year?

Mia: Hi, yes I'm Mia, so I manage the team here in Cebu. So to answer Mike's question, there has been a lot of changes this year. ColorIt, just recently, was bought by another company so that's the biggest change. But before that, we also changed our organizational structure. It was time to do that and was also in preparation for that sale. Our groups are now divided by brand compared to before where for example, a writer would write for different types of brands, depends on the need. But now they are grouped according to brand. And I think that's the biggest change that they had to — the team had to deal with this year. 

It's something that, of course, they were not used to because they were used to dealing with different brands from the day that they started working for Terran. But now, they get to focus on just one brand. And I think it's great because before it was difficult, because if they had like, for example, a plan for a specific brand, if for the next quarter they were assigned another brand that had a more immediate need, they needed to stop that plan and put that on pause. And right now, because they can focus on just one brand, there's movement in the plans that they have and just a fixed set of people that's going to work on specific brands. So they can definitely gel more, bond more and focus more on their tasks. So yeah, that's the biggest change basically when it comes to the team.

Mike: So one of the big things that come to my mind in terms of – we had the ColorIt sale, which I'm going to talk a little bit more about here in just a minute. We also had, I guess, another big day I think that happened over the last year. We had a day where we had to let a bunch of people go all in one day for performance reasons, not because we were downsizing or anything of that nature. But people here are a little skittish about these types of things. So I think that that was something that was hard on them. I think even if we let one person go, it's really difficult. But we had this day; we made a decision just to do it all at one time instead of spreading it out over a couple of weeks because I think people get even more nervous.

I think there's two things that affect people. It's the day of an event and then the scale of the event. And sometimes you can kind of, spread that out. But I felt like just ripping off like a band aid and just being done with it so we can move forward and get it behind us was the best thing. But unfortunately, not everybody works out. We do our best in the hiring process to hire the best people. We ask people while they're here to operate at a high level, and we pay them way above market rate and treat them way better than probably 99% of employers in the world. And in return, we ask them to show up to work on time and to really care about what they're doing and to have a good time while they're working at the same time and all those things. 

But over the course of hiring I guess a total of 15 or 16 people, whatever it was total here, three of them just weren't working out. We've actually had a fire four total people, but the other one was quite a while ago now. But it just turned out we had two people that were on performance evaluations. Mia and I had been talking about it over a pretty long period of time, and felt like it was the right thing to do just to let both of them go at the same time. And then we had another issue happen where an employee was working on another business while they were working for us. And we knew they had been doing it but then there was a screenshot of them doing it. And I felt like that was kind of like a zero tolerance policy kind of thing and we had to make a change because of that as well. 

So let's talk about that and just how that's transpired, what that's done to the team, because they're still talking about it. And it seems like they're still skittish about it. And even though we've let them know that everything is fine, and we're not doing it for any reason, that is going to affect their job as long as we continue to do a good job, it seems it still bothers them. And it's still been a big event. 

So let's chat about that while we listen to random vehicles and motorcycles go by, welcome to the Philippines. This is something I've gotten used to. I've gotten really OCD about the audio on the podcast. And I just have to just let the Philippines be the Philippines when I record here. It's either air conditioning, or motorcycles or chickens or random kids playing outside. There's not much we can do about that. So I apologize for those background noises. But anyway, without getting too off track Mia, let's just kind of talk about that event as well.

Mia: Yeah, that was — everybody was basically so shocked that that happened because we had to let three people go. The one thing that we really had to assure them was we're not downsizing. That's not what happened. We're not letting people go because something is wrong with the company or we're losing sales or whatever. So that's one thing that they were most worried about that the reason was that. So we had to reassure them that no, it just turns out that we had these three people that we need to let go at the same time, two of them for the same reason and the other one for a different reason. 

But yeah, they were pretty much shaken up about it. I remember, I think I did that first thing in the morning. And I called those three people one by one. Of course, I didn't do it at the same time. But as I was calling one, and then after I talked with that person, he picked up his things and just left and didn't say a word. So they were like, okay, what's going on? And then I called another person and it was like, okay, what's happening? So they were pretty worried about it. They thought they were going to be called next. So I remember one of the employees said he went down to have a smoke break, and he didn't even smoke. So he was that nervous and he just didn't know what was happening. 

So I didn't want to talk to the team, to the entire team yet because there was still this third person that I needed to talk to, and that person came in like, I think late in the afternoon. So after I talked to that third person, then I talked to the entire team and I addressed their concerns. Okay, I know that you're probably wondering what's happening. So I explained everything to them and I opened the floor for questions. And I just basically assured them that nothing is wrong with the company. It's just a performance issue and another issue that we had to deal with that third person. 

And yeah, after that they were, I think, calmed down a bit. But yeah, they still talk about it in the office, because it's like, hasn't happened before in the history of Terran that we had to let go of that many people in the same day. So yeah, they still talk about it. But yeah, I think the main thing that we just did there is just we just had to reassure them, nothing is happening to your jobs, you still have those jobs. And I think what I reassured them was we had our one on ones last month, right, did I tell you anything about a problem you had with your performance, and then everyone said no. So okay, you should be assured that you shouldn't be worried about your job, because you're doing a great job. So it's just those three people that unfortunately we just had to let go.

Mike: So I know this is a serious conversation but my sick, twisted humor, I can't help it. But it would have been like really mean to call a fourth person in just to have them come in and be like — and talk to them about something else, right. It's like you're doing a great job, or whatever, that would be a horrible prank. But getting back to being serious for a second, I mean, this is what's really difficult about having employees and why I want someone like Mia there to deal with this stuff. Because again, I'm horrible with dealing with this stuff, I mean, just and doing performance plans and letting things go on too long that people aren't doing a good job, I'll let people take advantage of having to deal with these types of issues, like, are just not fun to begin with. 

And it's just like, how do you also deal with the dynamics of an entire team and how this affects other people? My feeling is that people should be adults and not worry about stuff like this. And there's always other jobs out there, etc. But I come from a different kind of cloth. And a lot of it is I think why I'm an entrepreneur, right? I mean, I didn’t worry about these types of things when I was an employee. If someone wanted to fire me, or let me go for any reason, I would never have really been worried about that because, again, just how I am, and like, I know I'll be fine. I know I'll find something else to do, I'm confident in that regard and just a different mindset. 

But I always think it's important to put yourself in other people's shoes. And the vast majority of people in society are not entrepreneurs and are not of that mindset. They're in their job for a different reason, and they need that job. And they need that job security, and they're probably living paycheck to paycheck or close to it. And losing their job is something like it's a life changing series of events. And so it's easy to start understanding why even if people are doing a good job, and they feel like they're secure, that can change very quickly. And security often is an illusion anyway. No matter how big a company is, or how stable they seem, things can change really, really quickly, even for larger “more stable companies.” 

And so I'm really sensitive to these types of things because I don't want people feeling that way. And sometimes you have to kind of think through things for them and help them get through those things. It was the same thing when we sold ColorIt. I knew that that was going to be a challenge. But hopefully over time, this will be something that people will gain more trust in us. I don't think it'll ever be perfect. But what they don't understand, the people that are doing a good job, the people that are worried about their job, what they don't understand is these other individuals went through months of performance evaluations, right? 

Mia does this every month. And so every month, it was like you’re unsatisfactory at this, unsatisfactory at that, whatever scale she's using. I think it's like five, it's five — it's not one through five, each one has kind of a terminology, a nomenclature around it. But let's just say it's a one to five scale, which is basically what it is. You're like a one in these areas. And it's a consistent problem, like you're a one every month, and we're letting you know if you don't improve this, then we're going to have to let you go. You need to take it seriously. 

And if they don't take it seriously, if they keep coming to work late, if they keep making mistakes and fulfilling the wrong orders or telling customers incorrect information, whatever it is, we have to do something about it. We can't let it destroy our businesses because we want to be nice people. There's a saying I often use, don't mistake my kindness as a weakness. And I think that you got to be careful with this type of stuff. And also, I think that the bar gets raised higher if we are outside the boundaries of normality of kindness. 

So one of the people that we had to let go, I felt like the bar was higher for her because she had some family issues where she had to work from home for a couple of months and traveled back to another island to be with her family member. And these are things that we want to be able to do for people and she also needed to work different hours. And if we're making exceptions to let people do this type of thing, and then everybody else feels like that they can do it too, right. And so we had them have a bar that's well, you can only do this because you've proven that you deserve to have this flexibility. 

But then again, obviously, if you aren't doing as good of a job as we want, or you do something that's inappropriate, then the standard is going to be higher for you because, again, don't mistake kindness as a weakness. And that was another situation that happened at that same time. So hopefully, again, over time, we can convince people that if you're doing a good job — we were always open and honest and try to just be candid with people. There's never any guarantee or promise of anything moving forward. Business changes quickly. But in the time that you're here and we can do anything for you, we will. 

And even the people that we let go, we still gave them a severance. Even though they did a bad job, and we had to fire them, we still gave them money to make sure that they went on their way to the best of their ability to get on with it, because they're still people and we want to take care of them. And of course, these are things we can't discuss with our staff. These are private matters. We’re not going to have a meeting and say, oh, so and so was like effing up on this thing, or they were screwing up that or this person was selling something on the side or whatever things it is. I mean, this is inappropriate stuff to discuss with the team. We're not going to make an example of other people in that way because these are people that probably are struggling to communicate outside of work, they all become friends. And I think that that's inappropriate. 

So we have to be careful with what we communicate to our staff and make sure there isn't a situation where we're doing something that I wouldn't want done myself. If I was at a job and doing something wrong, and I got fired for mistakes that I made, I wouldn't want that sent out in a company-wide email and people making fun of what I was doing or belittling what I was doing. So we got to be very careful in that regard as well. So hopefully, things will continue to improve in that regard. 

Moving on to the ColorIt sale was the other big thing you talked about Mia. We already had a lengthy conversation about that with the entire ColorIt team on another podcast. So I don't want to get too far down a rabbit hole here with that. But if you could maybe in just like 30 to 60 seconds talk about how that went down and how people felt after that happened, like right after it happened and how things are now.

Mia: Yeah, so for the ColorIt transition was, I think when we talked to the team about it, they were scared because as I mentioned in the other podcast that we did with the team is that it was more of, like, fear of the unknown. So they didn't know what was going to happen next, like who's going to be the new boss, is this going to be a good company. And another thing is because we're so close, like all of the employees at Terran feels like — it feels like family at Terran. And so that's another thing because oh, we're going to be separated from the team and we're going to have our own team. 

And when Mike assured them that he made sure that they were going to be given the same benefits and we're going to be working at the same office, so I guess that calmed them down a bit, I guess. But yeah, because they still — during that time, they hadn't met yet who the new owner is going to be, so they were still scared of what was going to happen. And they didn't know if they're going to be treated as well as they were treated when they were at ColorIt. But yeah, after basically every time Mike talked to the team, they always assured them that I've met these guys, and they're really nice people and I know that they're going to take really good care of you. 

And little by little and I guess they were okay with the idea. But of course, there's still that uncertainty that what's going to happen. But it was a good thing that one of the owners, Nirav, was able to visit also here in Cebu; they got to meet him in person. And I think after that turned like a full 360 that they weren’t that scared anymore of what was going to happen because Nirav was really a nice guy. And he told them about the plans they had for ColorIt and everybody is excited about what's going to happen next now. They're not scared anymore; they're looking forward to it. So that's a good thing. And I guess that's the benefit of having our bosses visit us here in the Philippines, because it's so different when it's just through Skype and through email that you're communicating with them. 

Actually seeing them in person and talking to them in person and spending some time with them, it really assures us, okay, our employers really care for us because they take time. And I know it's so expensive to come here to the Philippines and it takes like how many hours, 16 hours is that to get there? Yeah. So they take that time and effort to come here so they really must care about us. So we really must mean something to them and we're not just like numbers in their company that asked us to do things. So yeah, they really must value us because they spend all this time and effort to come here to meet us. So yeah, that definitely made a difference.

Mike: I think once you sing a Marvin Gaye song at karaoke like Nirav did, that really helps with camaraderie, right? It's like all right, these guys are just adorable dudes. We used to give him a hard time about that, it was pretty funny. But yeah, they're awesome guys and I'm definitely confident that those guys will be in good hands. As I mentioned, I mean, we took not as good of an offer necessarily from another person to make sure that we had someone that was going to come in and take good care of our team. I think that that's super important. 

The extra few thousand dollars or whatever isn't going to make a huge difference in our lives. And making sure that the people are taken care of is way more important to me and going to make a much more exponential profound difference in other people's lives, which I think is way more important. So yeah, I mean, I'm glad that that's — and it's been good for us and good for our team. I think it's actually one of these things where like everybody wins. It's a very rare situation where in life where it's a win-win-win for everyone. And so I think it's a win for me personally, because it's been less stress having that over my head, we did lots of podcast about that. 

I think it's a win for the team, even though they might not fully realize it yet. But I mean, it created an opportunity for advancement for one of the people that was on our team, she's now a manager. Those types of things only happen at major events like this. So as long as you’re working hard and putting yourself in a position to be there when these types of things happen, you create your own luck. And she definitely did that in this situation. I think it's good for our team from the perspective of “I have less things to be thinking about and worrying about now. So the things that we are doing we’ll do about better job, which will just be better for our company overall.”

And it's a win for the people who bought ColorIt because it's a great brand. And so I think it's just one of these rare things, like I said, like it's a win-win-win. So I'm excited about it. I know that it's going to be good for everyone long term. And it just will probably take them a little bit longer to figure out what I already know which is fine. That's what we're here for. So all right, so moving on to — instead of looking back, let's talk about things moving forward in terms of what you see for over the next year, the rest of 2019 and into 2020 bit which will be the one I'm back here next. 

There's a lot of things that we talked about on this trip, we got a couple more things to talk about tonight. I mean, you've come like light years in terms of managing a team. And I mean, all this stuff, you just took upon yourself to set up. I gave you a couple of books and some pointers and the rest of it you took from there, which is awesome. I mean, it's amazing. What do you see the next adventure being, the next thing that you're going to work on in terms of career development and building the team out and yourself as well?

Mia: Well, with all the plans that we have for Terran and EcomCrew, I'm really excited about where we're going to be like a year, two years from now. But basically, I'm excited about how I can help the team because when I first got the news from Mike that he was going to make me a manager and I was going to be managing a team here in Cebu, that girl didn't come like quickly, I didn't get into that role quickly because I was still answering emails, and I was still doing some admin stuff and helping the brands. So I didn't get to spend so much time managing the team yet. But the last year, I was able to do that as we had more VAs help with the customer service stuff and admin stuff. 

So I was able to concentrate on really managing the team and spending one on ones with them. That’s one thing that I make sure not to miss. I diligently do that every month because I think it's so important to check in with the guys and see how they are. And through that because I've had more time to manage the team, I've been — and it's, I’ve talked to Mike about it. It's what I love doing the most where I see someone for example, struggling with their work. And through these one on ones, I get to know what specifically their struggles are and I get them help with that. And I see them get through that and perform. It's the best feeling in the world. And that's what I love doing the most. 

So now especially with all these new projects that we have planned for like the year, and we're also planning to hire an HR recruitment specialist, so someone who will get to focus on like screening the applications and interviewing applicants. So I get to spend more time, much more time managing the team. So that's what I'm excited about. I actually want — I read Traction, I think that was last year that you asked me to read that. So I got a lot of points from that and I had so many plans for the team. Some of them I haven't even had the time to implement yet, because it's just been constantly being pushed back with all the things that I need to do. 

But now with this new HR recruitment person is going to help us with the hiring, so I'll have more time to implement those things. And I want to read more books and I actually want to attend more trainings or even maybe seminars that can help me because I still feel like I'm still not there, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to managing a team. And yeah, so I just want to be able to focus on that too moving forward so that I can be of more help to the team and help them be the best that they are.

Mike: Cool. So let's think of one last thing to end the podcast. There's a bunch of other stuff I wanted to talk to you about but my sweat point has finally been hit. It's so funny; Mia is actually hot so you know it's hotter here. It's kind of funny because we're in this conference room and we turned off the air conditioning to have a better sounding podcast because I hate the hum of the air conditioner and so does Abby when she's having to do the editing. But it's amazing how quickly it can go from — it was probably about 58 or 60 degrees in this room, maybe 62. I mean, it was really pretty chilly. 

And we were like, okay, we can turn off the air conditioning and it should be okay for a little bit. And we're only been recording for maybe 25 minutes and it's easily like 90 plus degrees in here now. I'm just– sweat is pouring from everywhere. So let's end with one tip Mia. I'm going to put you on the spot Mia, one tip for everybody that's out there that's got Filipino employees. What's one thing you could tell them that will make their employees happier and work harder for them? There's a lot of things we've covered in the past but let's end with one good tip.

Mia: I can maybe give two tips with the one most important maybe is food. I don't know, it's a Filipino thing that everybody loves it when we're out together having lunch. So yeah, that's definitely one thing that you can shower your Filipino employees with, like give them free lunch or snacks or whatever. But yeah, another thing is just take time to really talk with your employees. For them, that really means a lot because here in the Philippines, I talked to Mike about this when we had our one on ones this week, where he's just so amused why the team is so nervous when it's time to have their one on ones with Mike. 

It's because we're not– here in the Philippines, most companies don't ask their employees how they are or what do you think can make or could help — what can we do to help make your work easier? So we don't get those — we don't get asked those questions in most companies here in the Philippines. So it's only like there are some who are maybe also doing that, but not a lot. So if you really take time to talk to your employees, just check in with them. 

Maybe it doesn't have to always be about work. It can just be like, okay, how are you? How's your family? So it can be just about that. For them that already means a lot. And of course for them, if they see that they value, you value them as an employee, they will love their job and they will love what they're doing and they will enjoy working for you. And of course that will work out for you too. So yeah, that's I think, the most important.

Mike: Yeah, I have to tell a funny story about the food thing, just real quick to actually end the podcast. Last year, at this time we did our annual meeting. We always try to announce big surprises and initiatives at that time. And last year, we added a bunch of new benefits. We added taking care of their social security, their health care, this was a pretty serious conversation we had to have. When you look at it in scale of 13 people, it was a pretty costly monthly expense for us to have to take on thousands of dollars a month in expenses. And then we added some food stuff to the list as well, which cost us tens of dollars. It was like, I mean, it does cost money, but it's not an extreme expense like it was adding these other benefits. 

And I was like all excited, I had butterflies in my stomach and I was all nervous announcing the benefits last year, the health care and the Social Security thing. And I was expecting like this huge eruption of people being happy and I was going to feel all good about myself for this good deed that I had done. And people were just like, yeah, whatever man. It was almost like barely any response. And I was just like, man that is the worst $20,000 I'm going to spend next year; they don't even seem to care. 

And then the next thing down the list was the food thing. And they were like literally screaming, yelling, throwing stuff in the air. They were throwing papers up in the air and high fiving each other and giving each other hugs over this snack budget that we announced and the weekly lunches, which I mean, obviously does cost money. But I think that the mileage went way further with that. And it's just interesting. So as Mia said, even if you just have one remote employee, send them a gift card to Grab or something which is the local, not Grab, it is Grab. Yeah, the local Uber, and Grab has like an Uber Eats version here as well. I haven't actually — I've used Grab, which is the equivalent of Uber. I have not used the food version but I see posters for it everywhere. So I know it exists. 

But yeah, I mean, like, just send them a gift card to that or whatever you can do to help them. You send them a $10 a week of a Grab gift card. It's the equivalent of 1,000 pesos, which I mean, will buy them basically a week's worth of food, or certainly two really good meals from Grab for the week, and that'll mean a lot to them. And maybe that means more to them than giving them a raise even or other things. So yeah, I mean, that's definitely a great tip and it's something that you shouldn't take lightly. I definitely did when I first was like what should we do? 

And Mia told me a couple of years ago, we should have some snacks in the office. I'm like, why are we even talking about this? It's not even a big deal. It's $10 or whatever for everyone to have some snacks. But sometimes, some things are just in different cultures and different places mean more. And I thought it was just the people that were on our team to begin with. And I've realized now, it is a Filipino culture thing that I just didn't get for a while that I do get now and its a definitely a good thing to think about. 

So, all right, I am excited to turn the air conditioning back on. So we're going to sign off this episode. But one I want to thank everyone for your support as always for the EcomCrew Podcast. I don't have an episode number for this one yet, so we'll do an outro on this eventually. But I do want to take a minute to ask again, if you have a second to leave us a review over at iTunes, you need to go to your desktop computer, I believe to do this. But those reviews are helpful, we do read them all. I think we're going to do an episode coming up just reading reviews. There's some really fun ones in there. 

There's also some fun ones on the one star side. So even if you have a low opinion of the EcomCrew Podcast, go leave us a one star review so I can read that too. I love reading the reviews and they amuse me on both sides and definitely just kind of fill my heart with joy. I mean, some of the stuff that I read in there are just incredible. It's awesome the things that we've been able to do for people that we don't even know. Hopefully, we'll get to meet in person someday. But the people out there that are listening, I'm glad that we're able to help in some way. And you help us as well, by all kinds of things as well as I'm sure you can imagine. So thank you guys for your support as always. And until the next episode, happy selling. We'll talk to you soon. 

All right guys, that's going to wrap it up for the 254th episode of the EcomCrew Podcast. One thing that I want to say just real quick, I am so proud of Mia for doing the podcast, just coming on this with me. It's so amazing to see the evolution of her. The first time I think that she lost sleep the night before and literally just didn't sleep at all, knowing she was going to come on the podcast, and the next year, she was just a little bit nervous. This year, a little bit nervous still, I think, but just it's incredible. And it goes to show you if you continue to do stuff, you get more comfortable with it. 

And as my buddy Bill D’Alessandro says all the time, sometimes you have to do things that make you uncomfortable. And it goes to show again, just by doing that, how far you can come. I use myself as an example of this. I used to do a horrible job of public speaking, I was terrified of it and now it's something that I basically look forward to. I'm pretty close to that now. I can say that I pretty much look forward to going and doing it. It's become something that I enjoy doing and continue to do improve and do a better job of. And I see that in Mia as well, not only in what she did by recording the podcast, but in her role. 

I mean, just as a manager, she had no experience doing this stuff, but she took it upon herself to learn this stuff and do a better job and it's just amazing how far she's come. So thank you Mia for everything that you do. I appreciate you coming on and doing this episode even though I know you still find yourself on pins and needles before doing it. And we'll do another one next year. I'm sure it'll continue to get better every time, looking forward to doing that. All right guys, that's going to wrap it up for the 254th episode of the EcomCrew Podcast. Again, EcomCrew.com/254 to get to the show notes. EcomCrew.com/book to take advantage of our free plus shipping offer for Amazon Domination. Go check that out. And until the next episode everybody, happy selling. We'll talk to you soon.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the EcomCrew Podcast. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/EcomCrew for weekly live recordings of the EcomCrew Podcast every Monday. And please, do us a favor, and leave an honest review on iTunes, it would really help us out. Again, thanks for listening, and until next week, happy selling.