Robert Cadena With Lean Solutions Group

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here another episode of South Florida Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor. Diaz Trade Law, your customs expert today on South Florida Business Radio, we have Robert Cadena with Lean Solutions Group. Welcome, Robert.

Robert Cadena: [00:00:35] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Lean Solutions Group. How are you serving folks?

Robert Cadena: [00:00:43] First, thank you so much for the invite. What we do is we set up satellite offices for US based companies in Latin America. So we first started with Columbia and now Mexico City. And what we do is basically set up their satellite office in Colombia for all their back office needs here in the US. As you know, we have a lot of problem with turnover, not finding folks to for certain positions. So we kind of set up that office for them to hire good college educated people for those type of roles.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] And then is there a sweet spot in terms of the type of roles or are all types of talent available there?

Robert Cadena: [00:01:21] Yeah, Right now when we first started, it was basic entry level positions. We are mostly concentrated in transportation and logistics, but we move them to their segments as well. We started with positions like basic customer service, but now everything has evolved. We’ve been in business ten years. We now have people that are doing auditing and cash applications, a lot of things that require a lot of technical expertise. And what we do is our team try to reposition ourselves so we can train them, make sure they’re doing the exact same functions as the US employee so we can compare apples to apples and make sure that that their quality is there and that they’re doing supposedly suppose what they’re what they’re supposed to be doing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:05] So how would it work? So say I have a company and that I need help. How would I even think to choose you guys as a partner in this other than like, you know, if help can be anything, how do I even know where to begin?

Robert Cadena: [00:02:21] Absolutely. And as you know, outsourcing is not a good word to use. When people use outsource, they would go to a they would go to a country very far away who didn’t understand our culture. And it was difficult to facilitate that process of having back office support. So that’s what we came in and we called it different. We called it setting up your satellite office. It’s basically us setting up your own call center. So at the end of the day, if you have any positions that you have a business and you’re doing a lot of just to give you an example, accounts receivable, where did you just call in folks and ask them if they have their invoice when that check is coming and you have somebody here in the US, you can actually have that same position in Colombia. It’ll be your employee without the liability, but you would obviously have a cost savings. That is important at this point in time. We’re not only looking at cost savings per se because there’s obviously a lot of cost savings, but we’re actually looking at the quality of the employee that are going to be doing those tasks and how much how much better they get as time goes by and what other positions can they fill as they scale your business. So we have clients that have 20 people with us. We have clients that have 300 people with us, and the positions varied depending on the need of the company. So if a company is struggling and I usually tell them, listen, look at the positions where you have a lot of high turnover where it’s hard to hire. And let’s start with those with the positions that you’re really struggling with. They call us and tell us these are the positions we create an SOP, a job description for each one, and then we replicate what they’re doing here in the US and we give them tools to measure the productivity of their team in Latin America.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:08] Now, is there kind of a way to test this? So it sounds good. I mean, do I start with a 90 day project to see how it goes? Or do I have to commit to a period of time? Like, how do you move from sounds good to at least a pilot program?

Robert Cadena: [00:04:28] Actually, that’s a great question. And we try to make it very simple on our clients. We have no contracts, so what we set up to do is a 90 a month to month agreement. So you start with us, you make sure it works, and after a year it becomes renewable every year. But you can leave at any point in time because we wanted to make sure that if you start this project and it’s working great, we’ll continue to grow together. But if not, you can leave at any time. And that’s kind of our compromise that this and if this is not 100% of what you want it give you the outlet for you guys to to to just move on. But we haven’t had that happen so far. We have a great customer retention. And I think it’s because of that. Because. Give them complete visibility as to what their employees are doing. And in some cases they say, would you please use these analytics and these data metrics for our team in the US because we don’t have it. So it’s much more than staff augmentation is how do I utilize my employees to the best of of of their capacities and how do I know I given them the right amount of work to each one? And I think that’s what we’re really good at, how to maintain those processes in the back end.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] So now say, I take the leap and I’m working with you. Am I training somebody on your team at Lean Solutions Group on how to do this task? And then you’re finding that employee to do the task so that if that employee leaves, I’m not having to retrain them. Somebody on your team is already know how to do it, and they’re the ones that are kind of managing that individual.

Robert Cadena: [00:06:10] That’s right. Exactly. One of the the aspects that are not really considered by by business owners is how much time does it take me to hire, recruit, train and follow that process of that one employee that could leave in two months from now? So that’s where we come in. When when we start the process, we create an SOP, job description. We know the business. If somebody were to leave, we have enough people and we do the hiring and we do the background checks, make sure everything is online and we know what type of employee we’re going to be using for that particular position. So all this process that we went through, once we can replicate and train as many employees as possible, not only for people that are that that that are being replaced, but actual growth for the company. So you have explosive growth and you need to hire 1020 employees to do customer service or whatever it is. It’s hard to do it here in the US and it’s hard to do it by yourself as a business owner because that’s not your business. Your business is whatever the specialty you’re that made your business grow. So you get to partner with Lean Solutions and then you get this, this process where I’m growing and I have a partner that’s looking at all of my back office, making sure I have enough work for everybody. And I’m actually looking towards the future and I know I have the right partner in place. So like I said, we have right now over over 500 US based companies and we are very close to the 10,000 employee mark in all of our offices in that America.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:50] Now, you mentioned operations and but it goes well beyond that, right? Like you can help with business development or marketing. There’s a lot of areas that you have talent kind of ready to go. If I had a need.

Robert Cadena: [00:08:05] That’s correct. Our niche and how we got started is operations. It’s a basic back office. But then our clients started coming to us and say, We love this model. Do you guys can I have a marketing team? So we started leading our marketing division, which is basically the same staff augmentation for marketing. And then it happened the same with sales. My business needs a couple of leaders, business development reps. We place them in Colombia, they start knocking on doors and then the team actually makes the clothes in the US. And then finally we have the tech side and that’s our our largest segment. I think we have over 600 engineers, so programmers doing coding, we have front end, back end, all sorts of positions also assigned to US based employees because of the cost, which is considerably low and the quality is absolutely amazing. So we’ve been able to go into those four segments and really specialize in that niche and and grow from there. And it’s funny because it came from our clients saying, can you can you help me with this because I’m struggling with this? So we hear where our clients tell us and we also come back to them with with with best practices, given that we have so many clients that we can come to you and say, Hey, this process that you have currently, we can probably automate, get an RPA, get a team of programmers, we can build you this and this way you don’t have to do this on a on a day to day basis. So we’ve been able to develop over over 100 RPAs to build those models for customers. So if you ask me what really works, the combination between tech and and and people is really what enables us to go to scale. Where, where, where are we at right now?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:55] So now from the US standpoint, when you’re working with clients here in the US, what are some of the maybe misconceptions they might have about using a service such as yours? What are some of the areas where they might have a bias to think that they’re. There’s no way this is going to work for my company.

Robert Cadena: [00:10:16] Sure. There obviously, I’ve been I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’ve had to break out a lot of those doors that were shut in front of me, the first one being the culture. So that’s why we began with this near-shore model, because they were right. The the culture of somebody being 12 hours away, 8 hours away, it’s completely different. The time zones are completely different. With this, we kind of mitigate a lot of those. A lot of those those things that came to us as as as opposing this business. So right now, we have places that are two and one half hours away. The culture in Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala is very similar to the one in the US. I’d say a big one is the English. We have a thick accent because maybe my customers are not going to like that. I was born and raised in Columbia. I came here when I was 24. I went to George Washington High School. And like me, there’s thousands and thousands of of people in Latin America that that really understand the culture, have great English levels. And I’d say 99% of our staff is completely bilingual with great English levels. So I think those that’s the most one. And and the last one was, is it dangerous for me to go over there and train my team? And I think we’ve had God knows how many visitors, but we have at least 5 to 7 clients visit us on a daily on a weekly basis. It’s very safe. It’s a beautiful place. And when you get to know the people there, you understand that this is not just a job for them. It’s it’s how they maintain their family, how they grow, how they set up a a career path. So it’s just amazing not only as a business, but the social component that this has to many people that maybe disregard this type of job. And it’s really something they value in the places where we have offices.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:11] But it doesn’t require me to go there, right? Like, ultimately, the employee is a Lean Solutions group employee, not an employee of my organization, right?

Robert Cadena: [00:12:21] Correct. Yes, absolutely. The whole liability is on us. We’re basically a vendor here in the US. We the business, the model works where we build our clients here in the US with a fixed monthly flat fee for a 40 hour work week like you would anybody here in the States. So that’s the business model. But in in as you scale and grow, we have companies that are we have over 20 companies that are publicly traded companies. They want their team to go down there and experience what it is to be with their team. But but you’re right. You don’t have to be there to have a team. We just recommend it because it’s it’s so close. You’re going to have a great time and you get to experience that culture and have conversations directly with the team that’s assigned to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] Now, regarding your ideal customer, I’m sure over the years it’s changed quite a bit, but are you finding that more midsize and larger organizations are using your service or you still work with some small startups or small companies?

Robert Cadena: [00:13:30] It’s it’s it’s incredible that that obviously when we first got started, our clients used to come to us and say, Hey, I need two or three. We can still do that. I truly believe that people want to get their feet wet before they jump in the water. So it’s okay to come in, to come to us and say, Hey, listen, I want to start with two. I want to see how this works. If there’s potential to grow, we have no problem starting with two for six right now. Our our ideal size to begin with is between six and ten. But that does not mean that if you have to, you can come to us and we’ll help you through the process. It really depends on the the complexity of the job because it takes for us our implementation team takes the same amount of time to onboard a 20 person account that it is a two person account. But if that two person account has potential and and they feel that that this is something that that it’s going to scale and grow, then by all means we definitely want everybody because we want to help every single company, not just the big ones that are already situated, that are that are positioned, but also those companies that are struggling to get over. And I think that’s the story behind mine. This is why I started my back office in Colombia. I was struggling to hire employees in the US, and the scaling is basically impossible for me as a small company. And then I just set up my satellite office in Colombia because I was originally from there. It just made perfect sense for me to do that, and that’s how this whole process got started.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:07] So if there was a firm out there that needed, like say, they’re ready to get a sales team in place or a digital marketing team in place for their organization, but rather than hire one person here in America, they can say, Hey, you know what, I’m going to partner with Lean Group and then I can hire a team and then I can be off and running and train them well once. And then I’ll have a constant supply as they grow and I scale at 100%.

Robert Cadena: [00:15:40] And like I said, their objectives should be to focus on their main business, what they do. And to your point, if I can bring one time a team of Lean group and they can if I need if I have need of more people, they can train them and go through the process of hiring, recruiting, doing all this process, then it makes perfect sense. The one thing that we’ve been able to do is replicate what the US based company has. We don’t want to change the culture. We don’t want to change any of the structure of the company. We want to ensure that what you build your business is growing. It’s because it’s a good business. So we just want to make sure we’re there and we kind of replicate exactly what what the company is doing here in the US. I think I think one of the biggest obstacles that we had was we had a lot of clients saying, Do I lose control of my like I don’t want I don’t know where Colombia is or Guatemala, I don’t care. But I just I don’t want to lose control. And the fact that we we kind of take these employees and present them to the customer, they can interview them. They’ll be talking to them on a day to day basis. It’s like hiring somebody in another state. It’s the exact same thing. So we just give you the tools for you to do that and you become a multinational multinational company overnight when you have an office in Colombia through Lean Solutions and you can manage that team very closely as opposed to just a regular outsourcing where somebody is doing the job for you. And there’s really no measuring of of whether or not that’s working. And if your clients are enjoying that. We have a ton of clients that have customer facing positions that were unheard of ten years ago. It’s because if we if we replicate everything, including the culture, the way customers are treated, the processing, which is done, then there’s no reason why you wouldn’t have something like this that gives you huge benefits and helps you scale and grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:39] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Robert Cadena: [00:17:43] Okay, so we’re one of the ideas of of of what we’re trying to do is go into different areas. Right? We’re in transportation logistics. We’ve been moving into the supply chain world. Obviously, that’s that’s where our expertise comes from. But we also have other shippers, people that that that sell products. So if there’s a company out there that has it’s in a different model of what we have right now. We can we can take that same model and do the same process and help them, and that’ll give us the knowledge and expertise of other other business and other areas that we can expand to. So for me, that’s the most important part. Right now we have a company that that wants to start startup with engineers and. Architects to help them build models and renderings out of our offices in Latin America. And I think that’s going to be a good one. I just I just want to know how many of those businesses we can we can help establish and grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:44] Now, are your clients primarily in South Florida, or do you have clients all over the world?

Robert Cadena: [00:18:49] All over? The majority, I’d say 98% of them are in Canada, in the USA.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:56] But they’re not in specific. Like, are you looking to target certain regions of of the US, like in certain areas like the Southeast? Is that better than the West or It doesn’t really matter.

Robert Cadena: [00:19:07] It really doesn’t matter. We have a ton of customers from Chicago. We have a lot of New York, California, Salt Lake City, Texas. It really doesn’t matter. And that’s why we position our offices in different places and Latin America to make it convenient for them with the time zones and the getting there if they decide to go visit their folks. So it really doesn’t matter. I think I think obviously there’s areas that struggle more than others, places like California and New York where talent is so expensive. And when you find a place where you get similar talent and it’s a fraction of the cost, then then it’s a no brainer. But but it works in every single and every single state in the US. And I think we have all over at this point.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:59] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What are the best way to get a hold of you?

Robert Cadena: [00:20:07] Sure. Our website is lean group dot com. You can go in there. We have actually that website, the website for Lean group. We do have videos of our offices and it kind of shows each location, the cities where we’re in. We also have all of our services, all the information. So you can, you can check out that email. All the, the information for you guys to contact us is there. And like I said, it’s it’s I know it’s it’s one of the hardest things for people that have never done this before, but this model really works. So if you’re struggling on hiring, recruiting, finding that right time in the US, maybe we can find you the same sort of talent, the same level of talent somewhere else. So go to our website, check it out. There’s a there’s a contact info, of course, on the website and hoping we can get some some good companies out of the out of this interview of course.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:08] Yeah. And it’s one of those things where if you’re struggling, it’s worth a conversation 100%.

Robert Cadena: [00:21:14] And by the way, we mentioned before, there’s there’s no contract. So if you want to try it out for a certain period of time, you can try it out. You can leave it any time. So there’s there’s there’s really no reason why you can’t get this a chance. And if it works, it’s great. And if not, there’s no harm, no foul. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:32] Good stuff. Well, Robert, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Robert Cadena: [00:21:38] Thank you so much for you. Appreciate the invitation. And and like I said, again, we’re we’re very happy that that that that you guys have us on the show and hopefully this this reaches a lot of people that are listening and wanting to do this but maybe we’re reluctant to do so. And after hearing the story, they they’re probably going to try it out. So thank you so much, Lee. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:00] You got it. All right, this Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on South Florida Business Radio