The following transcript was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Carlie: Hey there, it’s Carlie with the Expat Focus Podcast. There is more to establishing yourself in a new country than simply finding a place to live and opening a local bank account — though of course, you can feel very accomplished when you do get those two things down. But you also need to get familiar with local societal norms, learn how the recycling system works, and find like-minded people to start building your community.
Laura Poggioli recognised the need for this kind of lifestyle support for expats when she started her business called La Relocation, and she joins me in this episode to talk about what is key to living well and really enjoying your time abroad. Laura, thanks for joining me on the Expat Focus Podcast.
Laura: Thank you. I’m very pleased to be invited to your podcast. Thank you very much.
Carlie: I’d love to know, to start with, how did you come to decide to set up a relocation agency?
Laura: This is a good question, and sometimes I ask myself the same thing. I could feel the need for this type of service. I was coming from a huge international company that also used this type of service, and I realised that in my territory it was missing.
Carlie: So where did you start in the world?
Laura: In a very small area called Lugano, the Italian part of Switzerland. It’s a very nice and interesting area where there are a lot of international business people coming from abroad to open their companies. I started in this small area as an opportunity because I was the first one providing this type of service in this territory.
Carlie: And what did these companies require? What did you identify was really lacking for their international employees?
Laura: Well, in my long experience of taking care of managers who were going to other countries for work — the purpose was always the career, we call them expats — I realised that in many cases, the support they were receiving was like a checklist. “I’m going to find you a house. I’m going to find you a school for the children. I’m going to rent you a car.” But nobody was really thinking about what their actual needs were.
The real problem — and I can say 90% of cases were like this — is that once they arrived with their responsibilities at the company and had to start working, they had a lot of worries, a lot of problems at home. For me, doing relocation is assisting people in the whole process, not only before they arrive or helping them find those small things, but helping them feel secure, feel comfortable, and have someone they can trust. When they start their first day of work, they know someone will take care of the rest. That’s why I created a different business model for relocation.
Carlie: It’s so true that when you move to a new country, you need support beyond just, “Okay, we’ve got the apartment, we have the job, we’ve got the car.” I saw a post in one of the expat forums I’m in just the other day — a new family in town asking, “Can someone help us just make phone calls to get a plumber, to enrol the child in school, to call the bank?”
Laura: You really make the point. It’s about orientation. When you’re very happy and you really want to move to a nice place, you’re motivated for the career, for the family, you’re excited — so you go there and you sort out your relocation. But at one point you get lost with the orientation. Where do I find the small things I didn’t think about? “Oh, it’s a beautiful place. I have the beach, the lifestyle I like.” But then you have small needs and you don’t know what to do.
Those small things — for you and I, maybe it’s nothing, because we don’t give them a lot of importance. But when we talk about families, there are different identities, and each member, in the process of moving to another country, is losing their routine — the comfort zone they used to have. Each member of the family will feel this differently.
A good relocation manager — and this is what I’m teaching all the people in my franchise — you have to care about what they really need, not just until they arrive. How you take care of them afterwards is the key. For me, that means doing relocation properly.
Carlie: Yeah, 100%. Unless you’re moving to be with a partner, if you’re moving for a job where you don’t have a community to slide into, how do you go about finding and building that community in your new place? You need some guidance.
Laura: There are some tips we can give, but all those tips have to come after knowing the families. There are a lot of expat communities, and I have to say I’ve met amazing people through them. I call it expat aptitude — it’s an open mindset. When you’re the right person and you feel that you want to make new experiences and meet other people, those communities can be really helpful.
But sometimes they don’t really give you the opportunity to know the territory where you’re going. You always see the situation through other people’s good or bad experiences. And there are also people who are not made for this.
We try — and with this I’ll use your words — this is our goal: I want to talk to you, I want to know why France, why this place, and what was your routine before. What makes you happy? This is the question that people working in relocation need to remember — the happiness of the person is very important. It brings the stress level down. Let me make you happy on this journey.
Carlie: How long into having your business did you realise there was this need to go beyond the typical relocation services and offer what you call lifestyle services?
Laura: I like this question. It came to me quite quickly. When I was working for a big company, I moved more than 108 people around the world with them, working with other relocation services globally. And I really realised that the problems were just behind the corner.
When I decided to start my business — I was already 40 — I really felt that I could make a difference, because the people I was taking care of were happy. They continued their careers, and I started to build relationships with their families. I understood that I could make a difference and try to build a business model behind this typical service — one that goes beyond what HR or other companies usually provide.
I can say I started to understand quite quickly that the service needed an empathic, holistic approach. I started working on the project while I was still working for the company. In my forties, I said goodbye, we had a nice cake at my company, and I was ready to start. In these 11 years, I’ve been working to build a brand and I’m expanding around the world.
Carlie: Can you give me an example of what lifestyle services are?
Laura: I have so many, but one of the things people need most is related to house management. When you rent, or even buy — because in some cases families want to buy a house straight away — there are rules, and each country has its own. Each building has its own rules, and they’re in the local language. So there’s also the language barrier to solve sometimes.
We support them in understanding how it works. We help them find a cleaning person, a dog sitter — animals can be a whole podcast on their own because it’s so complex. We help them find babysitting, language courses. They have a passion — maybe they’re a tennis player, a golf player, they’re a collector. I just had this experience with card collecting, for example.
Just to give you another example, a lovely French lady who loves ballet and loves going to the theatre — but when you move alone, you don’t really want to go by yourself and you might not feel comfortable. So what we did, thanks to a contact who speaks French, was find a cocktail event. I knew that there I could find people speaking French because it was a French company organising it. I arranged for her to go, enjoy the ballet, and meet other people.
Now she knows the theatre is close to her house, and she’s already contacted me this morning asking me to get her set up to receive all the information about upcoming events. These are small things, but this is how lifestyle management works.
Carlie: It’s almost like you’re a social connector as well.
Laura: Exactly. We make them feel at home.
Carlie: I love your point about deciphering house management. We caught up with some friends in my city in France recently — neither of them happen to be French — and I mentioned something about the recycling and how it’s great they’ve expanded it. I saw their recycling poster on the kitchen wall, and they said, “Oh, is that what that colour bin is? We didn’t know!” I also have a question — I heard that in some parts of Switzerland, apartments are very strict about when you can use the washing machine. Is that the case in your area as well?
Laura: This is a little bit about the Swiss mentality, the respect for order. You have to know that we have a lot of old buildings, and having a washing machine at home isn’t always easy to arrange. To make it simple, the building administration asks you not to run it in the evening or too early in the morning, like five o’clock. But this is typical of those building rules we were talking about before. When you rent or buy an apartment, it makes you feel part of something. If you respect the others, they will respect you, and it’s going to be much easier to find your comfort zone again.
Carlie: It definitely helps avoid cultural clashes. When I first moved into an apartment in France, I didn’t know the unspoken rule about running your washing machine after eight o’clock at night. My now-husband was horrified when the spin cycle started at 11 PM — he was so embarrassed. The next morning we had notes on our mailbox saying, “How dare you run the washing machine.” I learned very quickly about apartment living.
Laura: See! Here in Switzerland, for Swiss people, you follow the rules from when you’re little, so they’re part of you and you just expect that people arriving will know them — but it’s not like that. For the recycling, we’re very strict. Try throwing away something wrong and you’ll get a fine. They go and check.
Carlie: Is it in Switzerland that you have specific bags you must put recycling in? You can’t just put it in any rubbish bag?
Laura: Exactly. You have your normal bag, which is a coloured bag for the day-to-day things that you can’t recycle. But for the rest, there are specific places where you go and put everything in the right container.
Carlie: The other thing in France I didn’t know was that if you’re doing work on your house or mowing the lawn, you cannot do it between about 12 and 2 PM on a weekend when people are enjoying their lunch.
Laura: Yes. Think about it — here in Switzerland we’re in the middle of the mountains. The cities are quite close to each other. If you don’t want to bother others, you have to have some rules. Some of them aren’t really written, but I would never cut the grass during lunchtime — it just comes naturally.
In Australia you have more space, so maybe it doesn’t come as naturally. It’s not that we are more educated than anyone else, it’s just a lifestyle. In my experience — and I think I’m a great example of expat aptitude and mindset — I don’t judge how people live in other countries or the rules they have, because it comes from their history, the territory, the climate. The climate gives you a lot of different habits. I just accept them and try to understand how I can fit into it. This is expat aptitude. If you have this mindset, you can live anywhere in the world and be happy, because happiness is not just about money. We know money is important, but it’s also about how you feel.
Carlie: That’s really a key to successful integration and enjoyment of where you’re living.
Laura: Exactly. For me, it has to be a goal. If you’re travelling alone, following your career, or you’re a digital nomad, you probably go because your career is the goal. You know what you want to achieve and it’s your decision alone — you look in the mirror and say, “I did good” or “I did bad,” and you can change course.
But once you have a wife and maybe children, and you’re also a brother, a son, a friend — all of these are responsibilities. When you decide to change your life, all of these things move with you. If you’re not well prepared, within three or four months you can start to feel uncomfortable, and then problems can occur. That’s why a professional in this job has to prevent this.
Carlie: What sort of problems have clients come to you with? What have they said they’re really struggling with?
Laura: The first thing is understanding why they’ve arrived at this point — whether it’s connected to bureaucratic things or personal things. Our approach is to reframe the problem as a typical situation. When people are focused on a problem while they’re abroad, outside their comfort zone, even a small thing can become huge. Then it’s difficult to find a solution in another reality, in another environment.
The solution is probably not what you’d expect, because each country has its own way of solving problems. In Switzerland, for example, we have specific rules. To solve a small problem here might be very different from another country. Maybe elsewhere you just go to the municipality and handle it, or you can make a phone call. Not here — maybe you have to write it down.
This is the real job, and we solve the problem. There isn’t a problem that can’t be solved anywhere in the world — we can always find a solution together. Of course, it’s not always the solution you want, in the timing you expected. Each country has its own rules for that.
Carlie: I know with French administration, the saying is that the first response will always be no, and it’s up to you to push until you get a yes.
Laura: Yes, that’s typical. But it also depends on the mindset of the person you have in front of you. We can’t invent hot water — it’s already there. You have to understand how you want to regulate it so you don’t burn your hands. You can be the best relocation or lifestyle manager in the world, but if the person you’re helping doesn’t really want to be helped, or just wants to use you as an excuse for their frustration, it won’t work.
Carlie: You really need to be flexible and adaptable as an expat as well.
Laura: Exactly. That’s why, for me, there is this mindset you have to have to be sure that your relocation and the lifestyle where you’re going to live will fit you.
Carlie: Laura, I’m curious about how your work sometimes translates into psychological or emotional support for clients.
Laura: What’s important is that each professional has their own role. There is a moment where it’s not the lifestyle manager or the relocation manager who should be a coach or a psychologist. But it is also true that we have to be able to communicate with the person and tell them, “Let me find a solution and a professional who can help you.” Managing change is not easy. Every day you change — a new house, a new kitchen, a new environment. There are people who can handle it and others who can’t.
In my business model, the people who work with me know that when we need a professional, we can help clients find the right one, but we’re not acting as coaches ourselves. We work with coaches around the world — they do it online in some cases. And I have to say, for some nationalities, before they come to Europe, we always suggest that the companies we work with offer them cultural support.
Carlie: Like mindset coaching or cultural training?
Laura: Have you heard about culture shock? When someone is moving suddenly — say a Chinese person has two weeks before they move to Lugano to work for a company — they might be very capable, maybe they’re an engineer. They’re fine at work, but the rest they don’t know anything about. It’s culture shock.
Carlie: I’ve had my fair share just in France. Eating at my desk at work is common in Australia and the UK — not a done thing in France. And even small talk — I love to strike up a conversation with people, maybe because I’m Australian, but French people don’t typically do that.
Laura: See, all those things! Or they look you in the eyes, whereas in some cultures you don’t have that. Those small things — to prevent culture shock, I want to tell you this. I lived in the United States. I was studying there. Do you know the streets there, right?
Carlie: Gigantic.
Laura: Yes. After two years, I came back to my home in Lugano. I live on top of a hill, 600 metres up, and there’s a narrow street going up the mountain. It took me a long time to readjust to the mentality that I could drive on this small street, after two years of driving in the United States.
Carlie: Impossible.
Laura: It was impossible. It took me a while. Of course, I’ve been doing this for years, so it came back to me quite quickly. But imagine someone who has been used to big wide streets, and then they move to Lugano and have to find a house in one of these small villages. They’re not driving anymore because they’re afraid to drive on these narrow streets. Their normality is already broken.
We are there to find a solution — we can arrange driving classes, for example. But I’m not there to help them psychologically to understand that they’re experiencing a moment of culture shock. That’s something else.
Carlie: That’s where you refer them to experts?
Laura: Yes, exactly.
Carlie: And finally, Laura, what do you see as the key to living well and really enjoying your time on assignment in another country?
Laura: I think the real secret is to be able to recognise that we deserve to be happy, and that we don’t need to have everything under control when we’re in another environment. Keep the mind open. If we’re able not to judge what is happening but to accept it and understand why these are the rules of the environment, automatically the mood changes, and then you can really get the best out of it.
Carlie: It’s like you need to let go of control and have that open mind to let good experiences in.
Laura: Yes. What do you think? You have the experience.
Carlie: Definitely. I think I’m guilty of wanting to put the triangle that is France into a square hole — unsuccessfully. I get frustrated sometimes that it’s not my country, but that’s less and less these days. I think there’s a lot of progress to be made when you just accept this is how things are and go with it rather than fight against it.
Laura: Yes, accept it. And then you can also decide, “I’m not able to do this.” When you move to another country, you do it for a reason — I call it the vibration. You want to do it because of love, work, or whatever. But in the case that you don’t feel at home after one or two years, you’re allowed to talk to yourself and say, “I accept the environment, but I don’t see myself in it.” This can happen.
Carlie: And it doesn’t mean you failed.
Laura: No, absolutely not. You might love a country at the beginning, but then you get stuck in the job, or your family is having some problems, and you don’t see yourself in the environment because your mentality isn’t aligned with it. That’s fine — change again. You did it once, do it a second time. Plan B, we call it.
Carlie: Well, Laura, it’s been fascinating to talk to you today. For people interested in the La Relocation Group, your services, and where you operate in the world, how can they find more information?
Laura: Of course, on our webpage — larelocationgroup.com. They can find me and my team on LinkedIn. We’re always open to respond to questions. We’re in Switzerland, of course, Spain — Barcelona and Costa del Sol — and Cape Town. We’re going to open very soon in Dubai as well. And we’re expanding thanks to our franchising model, where I want to find entrepreneurs with this passion for expat aptitude who are ready to help people move and settle into their lifestyle in a new country.
Carlie: That’s it for today. What kind of lifestyle factors did you need to learn or adjust to when you moved to a new country? You can let us know in the comments on our YouTube channel — just search for Expat Focus. And head to expatfocus.com for loads of free resources to help make your move abroad easier. You can also sign up there for our monthly newsletter, and I’ll catch you in the next one.