Running a Remote Team (E118)

Zee AliFounder of Z-SWAG Bio: Zee Ali is the founder of Z-SWAG, full-service custom apparel, promotional merchandising, and fulfillment company. Zee has worked with brands including Chik-fil-a, Sony, Cricket Wireless, General Mills, and LinkedIn. Zee graduated from Triton College with a Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management degree, in addition to studying graphic design and web development. While attending school, Zee discovered an opportunity to sell chef coats to his classmates by sourcing chef coats from the local flea market, filling his duffle bag and going classroom to classroom at Triton. His side-hustle transformed into a chef uniform and equipment company which later morphed into what it is today. A true renaissance man at heart, Zee has many passions. His various talents place further emphasis on his versatility, which compliments his knowledge in business. To follow his journey, learn about what he is working on, and from his successes and failures, you can follow him on IG at @ZeeAli and ZSWAG.com. Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – eCommerce Automation Links: https://www.zswag.com/https://thezeeali.com/who-is-zee-ali/https://www.facebook.com/theZeeAli/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeeali/https://www.instagram.com/ZeeAli/ Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce. I talked with Zee Ali about running a remote team. This is the business of e-commerce. Episode one 18. Welcome to the Business of eCommerce. The show that helps eCommerce retailers start, launch and grow their eCommerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi , and I'm here today with Zee Ali. Zee is the founder of Z swag, a full service custom apparel, promotional merchandising and fulfillment company Z works with brands including Chick-fil-A, Sony cricket, wireless, general mills, and LinkedIn. I assume on the show today to chat about how he runs a remote team. So hazy. How are you doing today? Zee (00:42): I'm fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on. Charles (00:45): Yeah, it's awesome to have you. I love kind of talking about other folks who have kind of done the whole remote thing. I feel like that's, that's one of those reasons fundamentally why a lot of people get into this business because it's something that you can run remotely, right? Not like there's a lot of businesses, it's just not possible. But e-commerce is one of the few things that it truly is like completely. Location independent. So how long have you been running this particular company for? Zee (01:13): Almost 10 years and years. Okay. And remote the whole time. So, so our team isn't enormous. We certainly have, we have two offices currently. People go if they want to go, if they don't, they, they can work from home. That's up to them. For me remote is just easier. We accomplish this by providing clear outcomes of each job role. Here's what we're looking to achieve. So you don't measure success by the time that they're clocking in, clocking out. It's by the results themselves. So if you provide clear KPIs and clear outcomes, it makes things a bit easier. Charles (01:54): [Inaudible] Are, so where are, where are you located for our stuff right now? Physically? Zee (01:59): Right now I'm sitting in Louisville, Kentucky, and tomorrow morning I will be in Chicago where our HQ is. Charles (02:05): Okay. What does office number two Zee (02:08): That's in Chicago? That's, that's our flagship Porter's that's, yeah. Where the company all started Charles (02:14): And then it was the second office Zee (02:16): That is in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm in one of the conference rooms. Charles (02:19): Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Okay. And about how many employees? Zee (02:21): You're both ten-ish. Say we have like seven full-timers and we've got like three to five kind of floating around here and there as, as