"The culture of remote work has fast-forwarded by 10 years."
Tim Sutton is the coffee aficionado behind Coffee Geek, based in South East Asia, Tim loves reviewing cafes and sharing coffee knowledge with fellow coffee fanatics. Tim is also the co-founder of the Digital Marketing agency – Launchpresso Digital Marketing
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We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Tim Sutton: Hi I’m Tim,
I’m the Co-Founder of Launchpresso Digital Marketing and Founder of my personal blog Coffeegeek. I’ve been living and working remotely from Chiang Mai, Thailand for the last 7 years where I’ve built up a successful PPC/Paid Traffic agency. I’m also passionate about all things coffee where I spend most of my spare time providing valuable content for fellow coffee enthusiasts on my blog.
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your life and how did they impact you? How did that lead to where you are today?
Tim Sutton: Tim Ferris author of 4-hour Work Week. For first birthing the possibility of being an entrepreneur from anywhere which lead to starting my digital agency.
– Naval Ravikant – His approach to business and entrepreneurship in his stoic manner has been profound for me on ‘thinking bigger’. His rags-to-riches story is truly inspirational.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us, particularly for businesses. How did the pandemic impact your business? Please list some of the problems that you faced, and how you handled them.
Tim Sutton: During the pandemic, we lost 60% of our recurring revenue due to clients deciding to “pause” their marketing and paid traffic campaigns. Many of those clients never return despite our best efforts to recover them. Through taking massive action with sales and prospecting new clients, we found that moving from Lead Generation to Google Ads for eCommerce was a smart move. During the later part of 2020, we managed to move from monthly losses to returning a positive and sustainable cash flow once again.
The pandemic led to a myriad of cultural side effects, including one that was quite unexpected that is informally known as “The Great Resignation”. Did this widespread trend affect you in any way?
Tim Sutton: We had no impact from the “The Great Resignation” as our team was built with a remote work mindset already and located from many different countries around the world.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. How do you feel about this trend? Explain.
Tim Sutton: The culture of remote work has fast-forwarded by 10 years. Many American workers have grown accustomed to this new way of remote working and are now aware that working at a physical office is no longer necessary. In many ways, I don’t blame the ones who have the newly founded realization to ‘work from home’ and ‘stay safe’. I’ve been working from home for many years before the pandemic was a thing.
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. That can be quite an alarming rate. What advice would you share to increase employee retention?
Tim Sutton: We’ve had a seismic shift in the way we work. I would learn more about what my employee’s needs are in terms of work/life balance and remote work was part of that need. At the end of the day, employers need to be more flexible with employees as long as communication, deadlines, and KPI expectations are being met, then there’s no problem.
According to a Nature Human behavior study, In 2020, 80% of US workers reported feeling that they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them – a phenomenon known as “time poverty”. What is your take on the work-life balance? Explain.
Tim Sutton: I’m personally a huge advocate of the work/life balance. Employers need to build better relationships with their workers and gauge whether they’re becoming time-poor or over-extended in their tasks. Workload management isn’t the easiest for employers but getting the balance right with a transparent and communicative team can be lifesaving for everyone and the business.
A more recent survey by Joblist asked about 3,000 respondents if they’re actively thinking about leaving their job. That survey found that 73% of 2,099 respondents who answered this question on their employment plans are considering quitting. How are you preparing for the future to counter this potentially persistent problem?
Tim Sutton: As I mentioned before, helping my team build lifestyle around work and vice-a-versa through a 100% distributed team has been my winning formula thus far. Where possible, this formula is going to counter this possible ongoing issue.
Thank you for all that, our readers are grateful for your insightful comments! Now, if the Great Resignation isn’t your greatest concern, what is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Tim Sutton: Due to legal reasons, I can’t really disclose the most pressing challenge right now. However, our secondary challenge is finding good talent to join our team and service our PPC clients.
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Before we finish things off, we do have one last question. If you had $10 Million Dollars to spend in one day, what would you spend it on?
Tim Sutton: Marketing and Ads with the goal of exponential growth in our business.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Tim Sutton for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Tim Sutton or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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