McOkapi

We’re looking at hiring someone based outside of our country for the first time. This employee is based in the UK, and we are exploring our current options. The role would sit in customer success/operations, so it would involve regular hours, direct contact with our team, access to internal tools, and some responsibility for ongoing client work.

I’ve done a lot of research, and there were a few different ways. You can hire them as a contractor, or start a local entity in the UK ( but this is definitely something we would want to avoid ), and finally, use EOR, as they actually have legal entities based in multiple countries. From what I understood while reading about using EOR in the UK, one thing that makes the UK a bit different is that there are separate categories for employees, workers, and self-employed contractors. So it is not only about how we pay the person. I’ve noticed a few things I hadn't fully thought through, like PAYE, National Insurance, workplace pensions, written employment terms from day one, and the fact that UK employment is not “at-will” in the same way some founders might expect.

So now it seems to us that this kind of service would be the best way to go. Has anyone from the USA looked to hire in the UK? What would you do differently if you had to make that first global hire again?

We’re a small consulting team of five, and it’s been a challenge keeping everything organized as we’ve grown. We used spreadsheets to track leads and follow-ups, which was fine when things were slower. But once we started getting more inquiries, it quickly got out of hand. We have notes in too many places, and it's a mess. Some emails slipped through the cracks because no one saw them in time. A few solid leads went cold just because we didn’t follow up when we should have.

Now we are looking for a CRM that is simple to use, affordable, and a good fit for a small team. What we really want is something that lets us keep an eye on every lead. It would be great to be able to see which leads are slowing down, tag and filter them, and quickly figure out who on the team has time to reach out. It should also show enough detail on each contact so we can make a thoughtful offer, and work with tools we already use like Google apps and Asana. So far, Pipeline CRM looks like it could work well for us. Has anyone here used it? I would love to hear your experience or other suggestions outside the big names.