Building Relationships Through the Phone Lines: Richard Blank with Costa...

In this episode of the Small Business Origins podcast, we sit down with Richard Blank, CEO and Founder of Costa Rica's Call Center. Hear our discussion on outbound lead generation and sales appointment calling, inbound customer support, how Richard got his start, and some best practices for effective communication on sales and support calls. Guest Bio: Richard Blank is the CEO and Founder of Costa Rica's Call Center, a full-service BPO call center providing lead generation, customer service, social media support and more for US companies. He founded the company 15 years ago and has grown it to over 300 seats. Key Quotes: "I believe in synergy. I believe in circles, and I also believe in the sanctity of a meal together, breaking fast, you know, feeding ourselves, making ourselves stronger." (15:37) "Why call them gatekeepers, and why give them such a bad rap? These are the first impressions of Emerald City. As long as you understand the protocol and you can give an excellent first impression with that company name spike, you have a chance. Get them out of that trends." (41:44) "Leaders remember small details about you, or they dress in case your mother shows up so I can go downstairs and thank her for raising such a fine young man who's been with me for 3 years." (16:39) Main Discussion Points: - The importance of building relationships in sales, not just trying to force a sale - Techniques for effective communication and rapport building on sales and support calls - Why it's important to treat everyone in an organization with respect, not just decision makers - How to get referrals and repeat business through exceptional customer service - Why taking time to understand the local culture is key when doing business abroad - How Costa Rica’s Call Center vets clients to avoid unethical business practices

Garry Gary Beers INXS bassist performance video. "Shine Like The Sun" ro...

GARRY GARY BEERS A podcast interview combined with the strong curiosity of a proud member of my favorite band INXS brought me to ggbbasses.com. After carefully navigating the site, one section offered to “HIRE GARRY!” on a track. Naturally, I was very interested in all of the additional options associated with the bass session. As luck would have it, my company produced a song, "Shine like the sun" performed by the Costa Rican guitarist Igni Ferroque. Filling out a form to contact Garry Gary Beers was an unbelievable surreal request that was cool in and of itself. To my astonishment, Mr. Beers personally followed up with an email the next day. Along with the courtesy of proper introductions, we mutually confirmed my intention to purchase the full bass session package. Caught in the moment, I insisted on a good faith deposit for his time and close the deal. Mr. Beers had naturally shaped the pace of doing business in a relaxed way. "By all means send me the tracks. I’ll have a good listen and let you know my thoughts on moving forward. That work for you?" It did work as a potential new client and placed me in a good frame of mind from the start. Fortunately, Mr. Beers had informed me of the positive news about the song making the cut. "Hey Richard, the music is great! Looking forward to having a play on it". He offered many secure payment options along with the value placed on all four elements. The expenditure was more than justified and deemed a gift when considering his talents and achievements. Mr. Beers never pressed for any money nor attempted a hard sell. He is a nice man that loves music, period. In a trustworthy spirit, Mr. Beers offered me the convenience of sending a comfortable amount of money to start the project. The value of the arrangement was so good that I immediately choose to commit 100%. We sent a full deposit, sat back and prepared to enjoy the ride. As the secure funds entered the GGB business account, Mr. Beers had already taken the liberty to record the bass tracks and was at the ready to send the audio files. He added a sincere compliment as well, "Music is excellent by the way- really reminds me of Rainbow- one of my fav bands." Mr. Beers walked me through the easy process of combining his work with the initial recording for the finished product. The steps were simple, “2 tracks of bass version 1 – DI and Amp.2 tracks of bass version 2 – DI and Amp- Both of these takes have a click at the top to verify it syncing to your track. They are recorded to the tracks you sent with the click intro so they should sync perfectly." Mr. Beers added an additional spark, “I’m also sending synth tracks to accompany the bass tracks- Intro only. I have included a mix track and the individual synth tracks." The music had a studio quality sound and GGB grooves. It rocked along with the enjoyment of plug and play. A video of Mr. Beers playing on the track was coming up next and the apex of my unique musical journey. Like clockwork, Mr. Beers enthusically contacted me about the video and the confident reaction to his bass session. "Glad to hear it" He wrote. "I enjoyed playing the tracks… Let me know which bass track versions 1 or 2 you used with the intro and the track so I can send a matching performance video.” Handing over Mr. Beers all creative control was logical and showed a true respect for his craft. The consideration by Mr. Beers to collaborate on a decision was unforeseen and very appealing. How do you choose one groove when both versions are slick? I decided to mix and match the funk from the tracks provided. Mr. Beers had agreed and gave the feeling of excitement by his response, "That would have been my choice. The Intro bass with the fuzz and Wah is a trip!" The performance videos sent by Mr. Beers had simple instructions: "Hey Richard, here's 2 videos- the Intro -take 2 with fuzz and Wah - and the song - take 1 with pick. The intro track has a click count in so it should be easy to sync." He added, "The main track video has the guitar intro so you can sync to that. Hope this works for you." The final production was amazing and combined perfectly. Everyone noticed that Mr. Beers showed an authentic enjoyment as he adjusted his amp and started jamming in an Aussie themed studio. Apart from the brilliant music created, a heartfelt chest tap happened as he finished the song and the video ended. The final act of my personal experience working with Garry Gary Beers was a strong transfer of positive electromagnetic energy that was widely felt and well received. Thank you Mr. Beers for the luxury. I highly recommend Mr. Garry Gary Beers. The working relationship was easy and stress free. My firsthand knowledge involved the attention to detail, clarity to avoid miscommunication and the generosity of his sincere efforts. Experiencing a comfortable first time business deal was a pleasure. The financial investment in working with Mr. Beers was worth the extemporaneous chance to meet a multi-platinum bass guitarist. Most importantly, the bonus of sharing his music and imagination with fans. In conclusion, I am a very satisfied customer of Mr. Beers and admire his ingenuity on this special project. Richard Blank CEO Costa Rica's Call Center

Communication as the Key to Connecting in Sales - Richard Blank Ep 379

Business Uncensored. A Small Business Chronicles podcast. Linguistics an...

Business Uncensored. The Small Business Chronicles podcast. Linguistics and Pinball with Richard Blank Business Uncensored is a podcast in which host Ryan Sherrer talks about the less conventional aspects of entrepreneurship and personal growth. With a background that challenges the typical business talk, Ryan brings real stories and practical advice from a mix of guests. Tune in for unfiltered conversations and ideas for succeeding in business your way. Tune in to the latest 'Small Business Chronicles' episode with host Ryan Sherrer. He chats with Richard Blank, the linguistic maestro who risked it all and ventured to Costa Rica to establish a thriving call center. They chat about the quirky role of pinball machines and gamification in his business model, and how Richard's linguistic skills help maneuver the reputation challenges call centers often face. It's a chat that's phonetically fascinating and brimming with unique insights. Don't miss it! titandigital.com We like to call ourselves a full-service agency. By that we mean that our website designs and marketing plans are structured to take the burden of building an effective online presence completely off our clients’ shoulders. Our team, located across offices in Murfreesboro, TN, Carbondale, CO and Ozark, MO is made up of experts in each aspect of website design and digital marketing. They are trained to maximize your online presence. Website Design in Murfreesboro, TN WHY WORK WITH US? “Not every business has a team of in-house marketing experts. We can be that team for you. Our Titans are experts in digital marketing, so you don’t have to be. We are creators, innovators, good listeners, and people-persons who will pursue your project with the same passion you have for it. But we don’t just want to see your project succeed – we want to see your business succeed. We are invested in our client relationships and have created long-lasting partnerships with many great companies and entrepreneurs. Why work with us? Because we will truly be your marketing team. WHO WE WORK WITH Over the years we have worked with a vast array of businesses, and still do. There are, however, several industries that we have a strong history of partnership with. Not only are we experienced with these industries, but we’ve also enjoyed a great deal of success with them FOCUSED ON CLIENT GROWTH Experience and creativity are the hallmarks of our team. We’ve helped hundreds of companies over the years establish brands, build websites, rank on search engines and build social followings: so that our clients can improve sales, achieve business growth and accomplish their goals. That’s the point of what we do. ACCOUNT MANAGERS. DESIGNERS. WRITERS. WEB DEVELOPERS. SEO & SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS. When left alone, each individual is magnificent in their particular area of marketing. With their talents combined, there is no limit to what can be accomplished. No matter what you task our agency with, have confidence knowing an entire team is working to acquire leads for your company. Every service we offer is focused on one thing — your success. MAKING AN IMPACT ON PEOPLE SINCE 2011 Marketing is an amazing thing because of its impact on people. Not just our people, but our clients’ people. Their employees and customers. The families of those employees and customers. It’s all a ripple effect. The better we do our jobs, the more we help our clients, the more people we impact. In the end, it’s why we do what we do. Because we want our work to make a difference. ARE YOU STRUGGLING WITH YOUR MARKETING? We Want to Hear About it With the pace of innovation today, it seems like what worked one day in marketing doesn’t the next. It's important to have a team on your side whose job it is to stay on top of things. If you’re struggling to keep up, let us know. Our team of experts is ready to get to work for you! At Titan Web Marketing Solutions, we use a combination of marketing tactics to drive leads to your business — whether in-store or online. Each member of our growing team is specialized in a particular area of online marketing. This allows each client to have an entire team of marketing professionals working on their behalf. Our Services Include: -Website Design -Search Engine Optimization -Local Search Marketing -Pay Per Click Marketing -Social Media Marketing -Graphic Design -Logo Design & Branding -Email Marketing -Video Production Richard Blank: Linguistics, Pinball, and Success in the Call Center Biz Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #smallbusinesschronicles #BusinessUncensored small business chronicles,Business Uncensored , Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/kaptkAetGHU

Simon Says Simplify Sales - Micro Podcast. The biggest hurdle I have ove...

Simon Says Simplify Sales - Micro Podcast. The biggest hurdle I have overcome as a sales person was? Simon Morris is the Founder and Major Shareholder of a group of businesses that operate in Sales and Marketing, Online Fitness, Business Consultancy, and selling Coffee. A Strategic and forward focussing business leader, with over 40 years’ experience helping companies to achieve significant growth across several industries. Working alongside a wide range of multi nationals and regional SME’s. Commercially astute, identifying opportunities and mitigating associated risks. Applying strict governance structures with clarity and transparency. Implementing system and process improvements to develop accountability and efficiency cultures. Supporting sales and marketing strategies and driving sustainable growth. Simon believes business is a wonderful game. He works with business owners to turnaround the growth of the business ready for exit or sale. Simon does this by merging his sales and marketing skills, business experience and training in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) with resources from the Sales Master's Guild and the Business Buyers Club. He have worked with many business people over the last 40 years and started and funded businesses from scratch. He grew and exited businesses in a variety of sectors - such as Optics, DIY, Pet, Veterinary and Food and Drink. His mission is to inspire a great sales performance and solve business problems with agility, creativity, and excellence. SimonSaysSimplifySales is your go to Micro-Podcast for sales inspiration. Learn from other sales people what hurdles they have faced in getting better leads, finding the right customer contact strategy or becoming better at closing the sales. We never know where inspiration will come from, but often the best ideas come from listening to others. CallumConnects Micro-Podcast is your daily dose of wholesome entrepreneurial inspiration. Hear from many different entrepreneurs in just 5 minutes what hurdles they have faced, how they overcame them, and what their key learning is. Be inspired, subscribe, leave a comment, go and change the world Knowing the principles of selling is a prerequisite for #success of any kind. This podcast offers bite-sized expert tips and tricks from sales professionals. Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #simonsayssimplifysales Simon Says Simplify Sales - Micro Podcast, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/1LvaisjXpSw

Richard Blank - The biggest hurdle I have overcome as a sales person was

The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show. How to improve your communication skills on the phone with Richard Blank.

For living joyfully and successfully in your life and work. Get More Freedom, Happiness, and Success with Sheri Kaye Hoff. Sheri is a Business and Life Coach. She is the author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is transformational, intuitive, mindset-driven, vision driven, spiritual, and action-oriented. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and four grandchildren. Sheri is an animal lover, a travel lover, a wine lover, and a fun lover. Learn more about Sales, leadership, strong corporate culture, telemarketing outsourcing, and becoming successful in conflict management strategies with clients with CEO Richard Blank. With a mix of motivational public speaking styles backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers and became CEO of Costa Rica Call Center in 2008. It doesn’t matter what size business you have or the type of business you have. You can always improve your communication skills. Listen to my super fun and educational interview with Richard. https://youtu.be/F-Edg_WtBYg The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show for Living Joyfully in your Biz and Life. Create More Freedom, Happiness, and Success. Sheri is a business coach, consultant, mindset mastery expert, and personal development, expert. She is a best-selling author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. She is a noted radio show guest, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is action-oriented, intuitive, inspiring, and energy-boosting. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and four grandchildren. Sheri loves inspiring happiness, family dinners, dancing, football, golf, wine, the beach, and the mountains. You can also listen to the podcast by saying “Alexa, play the Sheri Kaye Hoff Show” This podcast is syndicated globally including your favorite podcast player and is available on youtube Sheri Kaye Hoff, is a Transformational Business Coach known for inspiring, intuition, vision, and massive action, and being a catalyst for personal and business growth, joy, and profits in a way that is fun, relaxing, and fulfilling. She uses both spiritual and practical techniques to obliterate blocks and create transformational change. Sheri is a business, leadership, happiness, and inner game expert. She has overcome nearly dying and has made it her life mission to share the keys to happiness and success. Get More Freedom, Happiness, and Success with Sheri Kaye Hoff. Sheri is a business coach, consultant, mindset mastery expert, and personal development expert. She is a best-selling author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. She is a noted radio show guest, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is action-oriented, intuitive, inspiring, and energy-boosting. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and 3 grandchildren. Sheri loves inspiring happiness, family dinners, dancing, football, golf, wine, the beach, and the mountains. Are you a coach, consultant, professional, or heart-centered entrepreneur/small business owner? Discover a clear path to creating the business and lifestyle you want. Relax into scaling your business doing what you love. Create more happiness, freedom, and success every day. Measure your success not just by more profits, but by the amount of ease, flow, and joy you experience each day in your business. Meet Sheri : Known for transformation and being a catalyst for business growth and profits in a way that is fun, relaxing, and fulfilling, Sheri inspires people to do the work they love and make money. Her clients have a passion for making a difference and making a profit. She is an author of multiple books including: You Can Heal: Lessons from Nearly Dying, Daily Miracles and Inner Peace; Relax Into Inspired Action; Keys to Living Joyfully; Be the Inspiration: 7 Ways to Inspire Your World, and more. Her books are available internationally and her podcast is syndicated globally (on apple podcasts, Spotify, google podcasts, iheart radio, and more). Sheri helps business owners and professionals to relax into attracting more income and to relax into success. She uses both spiritual and practical techniques to obliterate blocks and create dramatic change, and she offers customized one on one coaching, group programs, and her signature mastermind programs. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, a Master of Arts in Organizational Management, and a Doctorate in Holistic Life Coaching. She has an avid interest in metaphysics and is a certified group coaching leader. She has created coach certification programs for personal coaching, business coaching, and spiritual coaching. As a business leadership and inner game expert, Sheri created training programs, organizational change management programs for small businesses, and corporate training and development programs. She writes extensively on spiritual practices and how they can be applied to business and life. Sheri has taught business classes at the collegiate level, including organizational change management, human resource management, ethics, marketing, and others. A near-death survivor/thriver, Sheri experienced miracle healing. Sheri lost her brother to suicide and experienced setbacks and tragedies that could have stopped her in her tracks, but she made it her life mission to discover the keys to happiness and success and then share them with the world. She began her coaching company in 2007 after a diverse career including: being an exercise instructor in her early career, to direct sales, to management, training, then higher education. She grew up influenced by her mother, an English major, and her father, an Education Director. Training and development were household values. She is proof positive that you can combine multiple skills and talents and keep growing and changing. She launched her company because that is the way she felt she could make the biggest difference. She coached hundreds of people over the years and thousands have been impacted by her programs. Her mantra is: Relax into Inspired Action Fun facts: Sheri figure skated as a pre-teen and teen. At one time she thought she wanted to join the Ice Capades. During her first year of college, she wanted to be an archeologist. She also published over 30 poems and a fiction short story. Married to her best friend for over 25 years, she has three grown-up kiddos and three-step kiddos and is a step-grandmother. She lives in beautiful Colorado. Sheri loves traveling (remote island beaches are her favorite- among her many adventures, she has encountered a shark while kayaking and snorkeled in a 660-foot deep blue hole ). She loves golfing with family, friends, and clients. Reading a book a day has been a life-long habit. Family Sunday dinners are a cherished tradition and regular evenings out with her gal pals. Her mottos: Be Free, Be Happy. Be the Inspiration. Boldly pursue a life of meaning and passion. Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #SacrificetoSuccess #TheSheriKayeHoffShow The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show , Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/F-Edg_WtBYg s-h-e-r-i-k-a-y-e-h-o-f-f.com for more podcast episodes or you can say Alexa play the Sherry K Hoff show this podcast is syndicated globally and you can listen anywhere where you're listening to your other podcasts some examples are Apple Google pod link Podcast Addict Spotify and many more foreign [Music] from the Sherry K hop show and I would love to welcome you here today and I have a surprising guest we're going to kind of Step Off The Path and bring in someone who um is it's just kind of a new and juicy topic here on the show and so I'd like to introduce you to Richard blank and he is an expert in call centers an expert in Soft Cell personal sock skills with people and so we are just going to have a beautiful conversation and he is in Costa Rica a beautiful place I haven't been there but I have friends who have houses there so I'm sure I'm going to visit soon maybe we'll have a margarita together or something like that sounds like fun right I'm great poor Avida thank you so much Sarah for having me on your show it's very nice to meet your audience and to spend some very very nice quality time with you today yeah so you bring to US 27 years of experience and you are a CEO and uh you know we're going to talk a little bit about leadership we're going to talk about uh selling skills which sometimes small business owners uh resist the idea or they get nervous about those kinds of conversations with people and they start focusing on you know is this person going to say yes or no before they're even in the conversation so I just would love for you to open up with you know what is it what is that sales conversation and how can it be a positive experience for the person doing it and the person on the other end too it's one of my favorite questions the first thing I address Sherry is fear it's a morbid anticipation of something that hasn't happened yet you have my permission to be afraid of spiders and needles and other things like that but uh something mental I think you and I are much stronger so that's number one number two is I don't really see myself as a Salesman I see myself as an educator because Terry you and I just don't force anybody's hand they choose to listen to us so from an educated point of view we make a decision so it's our responsibility to be properly prepared to know our rebuttals to know the answers but also to show some empathy on these phone calls I I believe that when someone is too well rehearsed and they know their lines too much they become a print they lose their painting status they become commercialized they'll grind out the numbers and make their calls that day and get their metrics but they won't be an ace they won't have that sort of empathetic connection that you have with people I'll give you an example one of the simple things people do is never ask a follow-up question to something if somebody mentions they have a dog you say that's great I love it but what's the dog's name these are certain things that can ground you and have conversations about normal things that just doesn't have to be in about appointment or sale and so I think if you just start calls off that way more of a centered approach on how you were raised with manners and being polite but also being generally interested in what the other person is doing your conversations might last a little bit longer but you'll have more conversions as well so don't rush to make your 100 phone calls that day Sherry I'd rather you make 60 phone calls that day and every phone call we spend a couple more minutes talking about good things in life and what about in some businesses you know it might be more like you know six phone calls depending on you know the the type of package people are selling you know if you're selling like a ten thousand dollar coaching package you're probably talking to more you know high quality leads um and so you're not looking at like that volume of you know 100 calls or 60 calls I think I think some of my clients would have a heart attack I was thinking about that number but but um but I love I love your point about that you know that um you know it's about engagement so you know when we before we jumped on here we talked a little bit about the spiritual side of business and you are kind of a rebel in that you know you you pursued your dream maybe in spite of people who were a little bit resistant or didn't understand and so talk a little bit about what it's like to have a dream and maybe have the people around you not understand that dream first is you gotta know if you have a dream because when you're growing up a lot of people will offer you very strong opinions and expect you to follow them or they might even give your career or your future it could be predestined could already have it planned out for you so when all of my friends in high school back in Northeast Philadelphia at Abington they were going to Ivy League they were studying medicine and law architecture engineering and other degrees I had no idea what I wanted to do and that scared me a little bit not in the sense that I couldn't do something it's the fact that all these people had their lives planned out the next 20 years and here I am at 18 wondering what to do this is what I did know that my favorite class in high school was Spanish also recess but you can't major in that school majored I majored in Spanish at the University of Arizona and I minored in recess it's Arizona I also chose to be a communication major and just like you Sherry you're an incredible public speaker so I decided to study that I also majored in rhetoric you know you want to make sure that you give a proper delivery and your message is clear and a special sauce I decided to study micro expression reading so I could Master body language and see if I can get some positive reinforcement with those with whom I'm speaking and so these are the sort of things that assisted me in my early 20s to become a little bit more uh more balanced and impulse control because there were certain things I would react to and other things I realized that it's just the way that people are communicating and if I had the time to be able to break things down explain my way and and really as I say before show active listening skills to the other people letting them know that that's an excellent question repeating back the question that they asked you and boomeranging back with some plus two smile here's a very good way you can readjust tones of conversation and move them forward and that's what it is Sherry we just need checkpoints we just got to make sure every couple minutes that everything's cool and we can continue if not then maybe it's for my clarification I might need to ask something and these are the sort of soft skills that can reduce any sort of conflict management and can enhance any sort of experience with people because you're not being offensive you're just being a little bit assertive and you're making sure that you're showing empathy towards this conversation and it won't ruin your scent it won't ruin your Zen and your balance your Juju you're you know in in my opinion I I get to a certain point in a conversation where my clients will start saying my name and it's not in the introduction or the conclusion when we're confirming this it's we made that sort of anchor in the middle of the call and that's when I can loosen my tie sit back have a sip of coffee and let Mr Jones tell me certain things and I I know everything's going to be okay so instead of distracting yourself with the end result which will come you should be focusing on the now and where you are in this exact moment because it can take a second for the world or the conversation to change and so if somebody can be in that sort of mindset and there are other techniques for that which you have definitely shown us on your videos I prefer breathing techniques I prefer using pronouns and name drops so at least I can bring people back into conversations and those are the sort of things that I those are the sort of things Sherry that all these years and the ten thousands of phone calls I've heard that the action created a positive reaction with the clients and so we realized we cracked certain codes in regards to interpersonal communication hmm I love that and don't you think that the success it really in anything starts with the heart so when you're truly loving your product loving the service that you offer and loving other people like um before I get on a call with someone I just concentrate on sending like waves of love to them and also reminding myself that it's not about me at all it's all about them and and you know I'm in the place of truly caring not pretending to care but truly caring about the person that I'm talking to and so you know what are your thoughts on that kind of style and how you know is there somebody who um you know like I I tell people you know if you don't like people you shouldn't own a business because a business is about people you know and and so if you don't like people you don't like talking to people you need to do some kind of research in a lab or something and that's fine there are people like that but maybe speak to that a little bit I want to First address the last thing that you had mentioned in regards to your personality and sending love you're building up of energy I think you can show them on the first three seconds of any call I love using anonymity but I can't do it for an entire conversation that's kind of shady but if the first thing I'm going to say is not how are you or my name is Richard I would like to say Sherry you know or the name of your company and ask how the company is doing today why because it can get a gatekeeper or the business owner out of this Zone that you say where they don't want to speak with people but if somebody calls with sunshine or says the name of your company better than you do and asks how the company's doing it's just an excellent way to show Sherry it's an excellent first impression it's right out of the gate it's like a James Bond movie the first couple minutes amazing amazing here she goes here she goes and she has momentum and so I think that's important so at least you can showcase yourself prior to any sort of other introductions and it can reduce that you get some points for that now in regards to an environment it's the environment that this individual takes it's everybody has the same gym the same football field the same office environment it depends on the coaches the supervisors and the leaders I myself Sharon since I grew up in the 80s and I love the show Silver Spoons I wanted my own arcade so I have pinball machines I got Pac-Man I got a ski machine and air hockey table so unlike other bosses to answer your question I made a work play environment so instead of the agents going outside for a smoke or to sit on their phone looking at things or just in the corner eating by themselves individuals from other departments get a chance to hang out together and they can keep their skills sharp they can give themselves some steam to be ready to go or they can let off some steam you know if they had a tough phone call and Sherry I've even seen people fall in love by the Pac-Man machine [Laughter] and so happy is as happy does and I have a very happy home here it's a serious environment but I dress for it I know everybody's name Sherry from the moment they walk in and they go wow you're the first boss that ever knew my name and I go first that's a shame and I go unfortunately it might be the last one that ever dies but while you're with me while we're crusando Caminos when we're crossing past and walking together I'm gonna make sure that you get better I'm going to I'm going to increase your self-reliance Sherry it's important for me to improve your self-confidence and by doing so will increase your vocabulary by using a thesaurus because English is their second language so instead of using words like help which really is not in our vocabulary you and I use words like guide lend a hand things like that because it's the same message Sherry but it's such a different delivery I always believe you can gain points on delivery and so we reduce any sort of miscommunication or any sort of offense as as you said prior to this call today it's all about being confident and being empathetic you you keep going around compassion compassion well I have compassion for myself because I could earn a living many different ways no one ever told me how to start a call center so this was a Vision Quest that I had when I was 18 so I was on I'm still on this spiritual journey but really if you do not care about the people that work with you because you know they have to feed families and they have large responsibilities and you could mold them and the proper leadership is by example I just don't write checks for them I can get on the phone anytime and assist a client or close a deal I could do what you see in the movies if that's what you want to see but this is not a boiler room environment these are professionals here we have Amazon and HP and Intel and Oracle in Costa Rica so the scalability and the quality of these bilingual agents with their infrastructure is incredible we can compete and so they have options I have more of a natural attrition Sherry than than a forced attrition people will leave me because their boyfriend or girlfriend works at another Center where the scheduling because of school or sometimes is money but very rarely if not never someone will be walking out of this door saying I'm quitting today because Richard blank to face me on the floor because he he was too aggressive during training he um he didn't care and so that's how I as a man can look in the mirror and hold my head up high and look at myself because I can respect myself because I'm feeding 150 families a month and that was what my goal is Success my friend sharing is is built on one million thank yous and the fact that I'm a guest in this country speaking their language I've been embraced and so I know I'm in the right environment because I get costius I get these chills I get these six senses I can taste it that I'm doing the right thing and that's why I believe we're on this call today you you take your show very seriously and I got vetted just like all your other guests but I think both you and I had the same goal that we were hoping that we had things in common so we could connect and I passed that test and that's why I I'm extremely grateful to be on this podcast with you today show because you were so good you caught my attention it was really good that I could sit through not only one episode but I've been watched for a little while my supervisors are and I did and then I wrote you and this is where we are today so if anybody wants to learn a lesson about relationship building and energy connecting this is a 3 000 mile connection that we did here and it was done in in just a couple weeks and that's what makes the world beautiful sharing oh I love I love that I mean I just well and thank you and thank you for being here today so you know and I could talk to you for eight hours maybe we need to have like an eight hour marathon sometime or go to Sedona together I don't know but but I I want to go back to something that you started to talk about and that was micro expression and studying micro expression and what is that and how can people who you know just maybe in a job that they have or their small business how can they pay attention to micro expression to improve communication improve results we can look at a two-way Sherry and and it is a wonderful topic once you see it you can't unsee it most people refer to micro expression reading when you're reading the face or body language from haptics touch proxemic spacings facial expressions blinking object and self-adapters there's so many categories you can observe I believe I I stand behind this that the purest form of expression reading is through phonetics so it's literally sight unseen it's the purest form because you could mask everything else follow me quick here this will go in some easy steps I'll do it in about one minute I'm going to run through this thing Fanatics is done in four different ways you have your tone rate pitch and your duration we discussed earlier that the tone represents your emotion it should be empathetic and confident that's the consistent variable I could care less what the tone of the client is I just want to make sure it's positive you and I need to stay focused on the rate and the pitch how fast and how loud somebody speaks it may seem like common sense but when you analyze it for 30 second to two minute intervals regardless of the semantic regardless of the word choice of the rhetoric purely sound do it in a foreign language so you can really practice it let's get back to English you are paying attention to how they Spike or how they dip within 30 seconds after you've done a couple minutes worth of reading because you see a consistent pattern when this happens in my personal opinion it's a perfect time for the client to ask a tie down pin down or a confirmation question just it's a checkpoint Sherry does this make sense sounds good right Sherry for my clarification ABC or one two three one two three thank you just because there might be adjustments could that be manipulated yes that's why I believe the ultimate tellsan and that's why the police and interrogators use this they use the answering speed I can always mask a tone I can yell at you I can pause and not answer but my reactions to you is pretty much your ID you can't control that that's you that's your inner Persona and so I believe that if you use that as an insurance policy from your Spike or your dip rate and Pitch with an answering speed and you study that every 30 seconds to two minutes you have a controlled conversation to see if you need to interject and ask a follow-up or you could possibly rake certain questions by saying I'm sure you like at least one since you have me on the phone are there any questions you may have these are certain sort of strategic questions you could ask these people in case you are not sure and so after about three weeks it becomes habit you can still do this while you're doing your job it's just something that's subconscious but once you start paying attention to that like if somebody has a tick and starts scratching it's a tell us on that he's got a good hand in cards you can see that Helen Keller was a genius this individual taught us many mediums of communication and in my environment Sherry we are losing three of our senses we can't taste touch or smell imagine when you have all five senses how that experience like eating a pizza or even giving childbirth is some of the most incredible experiences and you're an amazing mother don't tell me that's not one of the top five and so we're eliminating three of our senses here for the experience so I believe that our hearing should be expanded but not only the seeing you can't see the people but don't tell me that books aren't better than the movies there's a theory called image streaming where you can give yourself better descriptions when you're explaining it to the people and so these are the sort of skills where people just slow down and calm down and take every 30 seconds to two minutes as an individual round of a fight for your own personal adjustment to their style but still keeping them on a positive tone you could have beautiful 10 minute conversations are you over analyzing people well yeah I am because I studied to do it and sometimes subconsciously people can be lazy when they're eating or when they're doing things and especially when they're speaking and so I believe that these are things where I'm not manipulating this or knowing when people are lying but I'm obviously going to be confirming things with people to ensure that we're still on the same level and this doesn't have to be done in business this can be done with budding friendships or with strangers or when you're in the restaurant and patient and these are the sort of things that you can just practice everywhere and anywhere and so dedicated practice which you and I do constantly when we're not on camera that what prepares us for when we are on camera and on the phone so if these people can practice these skills by themselves they're going to be phenomenal when it's time yeah and so well there's so much there but what I'm really what I what I'm hearing is the focus is not on ourselves and the conversation it's on the other person and so you know having that you know what you know total focus on the person like when I'm when I'm in a coaching call with someone it's like my entire world becomes that person and and it's a deliberate focus and it's very powerful because how many times has anyone ever been the total focus of someone else and and you know I think I I can remember I was talking to well one of my podcasts guests Janet Nestor she's a gorgeous energy healer and we were talking about business and she said to me you know Sherry the greatest gift you give to people is your presence and I actually hadn't even thought about it like quite like that before but it's the truth and and so if you look at a conversation with someone that this is me being fully present with someone else so so I just think um you're just a remarkable person and and so much fun so if if people were to take away you know um one or two really big things from this conversation what would you want them to take away the first thing and once again thank you for having me here and that is my first thing I am so grateful to not only spend time with you but to share ideas with your audience and you and your audience energy attracted me so just think of how powerful you guys are so that's for you and your audience yeah the second thing is I have twists and turns and I've had ups and downs but the one thing I've done is I've been very true to myself and the most important thing is that I love the language that I knew that speaking a second language would open doors for me and it would make an amazing first impression for somebody because it shows out of structure and discipline but I I took the time to show good faith and to make it easier for others and so I believe that that's why my woo way my philosophy of least resistance has made things very easy for me because I've I've taken a Renaissance romantic poet sort of Lifestyle I had no idea where this was going to go still have no idea but I do know where I am today and today I'm with Sherry and I'm having a wonderful day and if you're going to get those two things out of it just get the fact out of that I'm a much better person after being on this podcast ah thank you so much thank you so much and thank you to all of our listeners all over the world so it's really kind of good morning good afternoon good evening depending on where you are and um please let me know what your thoughts are on Richard's conversation I would love to hear from you take care everyone have a wonderful rest of your day talk to you soon bye-bye

Local Splash Thanks Costa Rica

0:08 we cannot begin to articulate how very 0:10 much we appreciate all your help you are 0:12 a wonderful component of our entire team 0:14 and you are invaluable to the success we 0:16 have so i wish i could be there to see 0:18 you in person maybe sometime in the 0:20 meantime treat me not right and i hope 0:22 to hear great things 0:23 hey local splash costa rica we really 0:25 appreciate all you do and from all of us 0:27 here in california thank you so much and 0:30 keep up the great work hola costa rica 0:33 gracias 0:36 hi costa rica hi richard hi grace we 0:40 miss you guys up here in fact don't 0:42 bother coming up here we'll go visit you 0:43 again and nina won't be the only one 0:46 going down there so see you soon 0:48 hey costa rica thanks for all you do 0:50 keep up the good work 0:51 hello costa rica i'm ej the it manager i 0:54 also help out with your five nine so 0:57 that's the other one that you always ask 0:58 for me when you're trying to get back 1:00 into your 1:01 dialer anyways behind me we have the 1:03 tree of awesomeness we gotta get your 1:05 pictures up there at some point i think 1:06 that'd be fun anyways hi 1:09 hey costa rica thanks for all the hard 1:11 work costa rica 1:13 keep up the good work 1:15 hi 1:17 hey costa rica we're really glad that 1:19 you're supporting us and we look forward 1:21 to doing more and more with the folks 1:22 down there i know nina is down there 1:24 right now i think 1:25 meeting with you so anyway we're just 1:28 excited to have you being part of the 1:30 local splash family 1:31 round of applause for the costa rica 1:33 team

The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show. How to improve your communication skills on th...

The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show. How to improve your communication skills on the phone with Richard Blank. For living joyfully and successfully in your life and work. Get More Freedom, Happiness, and Success with Sheri Kaye Hoff. Sheri is a Business and Life Coach. She is the author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is transformational, intuitive, mindset-driven, vision driven, spiritual, and action-oriented. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and four grandchildren. Sheri is an animal lover, a travel lover, a wine lover, and a fun lover. Learn more about Sales, leadership, strong corporate culture, telemarketing outsourcing, and becoming successful in conflict management strategies with clients with CEO Richard Blank. With a mix of motivational public speaking styles backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers and became CEO of Costa Rica Call Center in 2008. It doesn’t matter what size business you have or the type of business you have. You can always improve your communication skills. Listen to my super fun and educational interview with Richard. https://youtu.be/F-Edg_WtBYg The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show for Living Joyfully in your Biz and Life. Create More Freedom, Happiness, and Success. Sheri is a business coach, consultant, mindset mastery expert, and personal development, expert. She is a best-selling author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. She is a noted radio show guest, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is action-oriented, intuitive, inspiring, and energy-boosting. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and four grandchildren. Sheri loves inspiring happiness, family dinners, dancing, football, golf, wine, the beach, and the mountains. You can also listen to the podcast by saying “Alexa, play the Sheri Kaye Hoff Show” This podcast is syndicated globally including your favorite podcast player and is available on youtube Sheri Kaye Hoff, is a Transformational Business Coach known for inspiring, intuition, vision, and massive action, and being a catalyst for personal and business growth, joy, and profits in a way that is fun, relaxing, and fulfilling. She uses both spiritual and practical techniques to obliterate blocks and create transformational change. Sheri is a business, leadership, happiness, and inner game expert. She has overcome nearly dying and has made it her life mission to share the keys to happiness and success. Get More Freedom, Happiness, and Success with Sheri Kaye Hoff. Sheri is a business coach, consultant, mindset mastery expert, and personal development expert. She is a best-selling author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. She is a noted radio show guest, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is action-oriented, intuitive, inspiring, and energy-boosting. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and 3 grandchildren. Sheri loves inspiring happiness, family dinners, dancing, football, golf, wine, the beach, and the mountains. Are you a coach, consultant, professional, or heart-centered entrepreneur/small business owner? Discover a clear path to creating the business and lifestyle you want. Relax into scaling your business doing what you love. Create more happiness, freedom, and success every day. Measure your success not just by more profits, but by the amount of ease, flow, and joy you experience each day in your business. Meet Sheri : Known for transformation and being a catalyst for business growth and profits in a way that is fun, relaxing, and fulfilling, Sheri inspires people to do the work they love and make money. Her clients have a passion for making a difference and making a profit. She is an author of multiple books including: You Can Heal: Lessons from Nearly Dying, Daily Miracles and Inner Peace; Relax Into Inspired Action; Keys to Living Joyfully; Be the Inspiration: 7 Ways to Inspire Your World, and more. Her books are available internationally and her podcast is syndicated globally (on apple podcasts, Spotify, google podcasts, iheart radio, and more). Sheri helps business owners and professionals to relax into attracting more income and to relax into success. She uses both spiritual and practical techniques to obliterate blocks and create dramatic change, and she offers customized one on one coaching, group programs, and her signature mastermind programs. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, a Master of Arts in Organizational Management, and a Doctorate in Holistic Life Coaching. She has an avid interest in metaphysics and is a certified group coaching leader. She has created coach certification programs for personal coaching, business coaching, and spiritual coaching. As a business leadership and inner game expert, Sheri created training programs, organizational change management programs for small businesses, and corporate training and development programs. She writes extensively on spiritual practices and how they can be applied to business and life. Sheri has taught business classes at the collegiate level, including organizational change management, human resource management, ethics, marketing, and others. A near-death survivor/thriver, Sheri experienced miracle healing. Sheri lost her brother to suicide and experienced setbacks and tragedies that could have stopped her in her tracks, but she made it her life mission to discover the keys to happiness and success and then share them with the world. She began her coaching company in 2007 after a diverse career including: being an exercise instructor in her early career, to direct sales, to management, training, then higher education. She grew up influenced by her mother, an English major, and her father, an Education Director. Training and development were household values. She is proof positive that you can combine multiple skills and talents and keep growing and changing. She launched her company because that is the way she felt she could make the biggest difference. She coached hundreds of people over the years and thousands have been impacted by her programs. Her mantra is: Relax into Inspired Action Fun facts: Sheri figure skated as a pre-teen and teen. At one time she thought she wanted to join the Ice Capades. During her first year of college, she wanted to be an archeologist. She also published over 30 poems and a fiction short story. Married to her best friend for over 25 years, she has three grown-up kiddos and three-step kiddos and is a step-grandmother. She lives in beautiful Colorado. Sheri loves traveling (remote island beaches are her favorite- among her many adventures, she has encountered a shark while kayaking and snorkeled in a 660-foot deep blue hole ). She loves golfing with family, friends, and clients. Reading a book a day has been a life-long habit. Family Sunday dinners are a cherished tradition and regular evenings out with her gal pals. Her mottos: Be Free, Be Happy. Be the Inspiration. Boldly pursue a life of meaning and passion. Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #SacrificetoSuccess #TheSheriKayeHoffShow The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show , Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/F-Edg_WtBYg

Teatime with Miss Liz T-E-A Open Discussion with Richard Black Chief Exe...

The Shark Bite Biz Podcast with David Strausser. A Tropical contact cent...

The Shark Bite Biz Podcast with David Strausser. A Tropical contact center in paradise. Shark Bite Biz, hosted by David Strausser, started as a show on how to navigate to your business during the Covid Pandemic and now focusing on "the 3 G's": personal growth, professional growth, and business growth. This show has hosted many CEO's, VP's, Managers, and Small Business Owners all giving their insight as a subject matter expert in their field. The show has had legendary music producer Jack Douglas, Soledad O'Brien, film director James Cullen Bressack, Recruiter.com and CNBC Contributor Evan Sohn and many more. Strausser is a member of the Forbes Business Development Council. Are call centers alive or dead after covid with work-from-home going strong. Today's interview may surprise you as Shark Bite Biz's David Strausser chats with Richard Blank of Costa Rica's Call Center. Episode #213 Modern Call Centers. Shark Bite Biz is a podcast dedicated to helping businesses achieve growth in the roaring 20's. In a world full of sharks, learn how to bite first! This vodcast focuses on personal, professional, & business growth during the on-going global pandemic. We focus on bringing some of the top experts and small business owners to the show to tell their stories about how they broke through barriers preventing growth and got their business to the next level. More about the Host: David Strausser is an expert at enabling small businesses to drive growth via the promise of technology. David empowers his customers to digitally transform by automating business processes and maximizing business intelligence. David writes on Forbes as a member of the Forbes Business Development Council and a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. You can find David's full bio here: https://davidstrausser.com & https://sharkbitebiz.com. Shark Bite Biz is a podcast dedicated to helping businesses achieve growth in the roaring 20's. In a world full of sharks, learn how to bite first! This vodcast focuses on personal, professional, and business growth during the on-going global pandemic. We focus on bringing on some of the top experts and small business owners and allow them to tell their stories about how they broke through barriers preventing growth and got their business to the next level. More about the Host: David Strausser is an expert at enabling small businesses to drive growth via the promise of technology. As the General Manager of the Northeast for Vision33, David empowers his customers to digitally transform by automating business processes and maximizing business intelligence. David is a Forbes Contributor as a member of the Forbes Business Development Council and is also the CEO of a coffee business, Dead House Coffee. You can find David's full bio here: https://davidstrausser.com. David was born and raised in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the heart of coal country. At a young age David realized that the small city life wasn’t for him. He yearned for something larger and 6 weeks after the September 11th attacks, while barely 18, he decided to pack up and move to a new life. “Viva la Mexico”. David moved to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Why? Simple. He was able to live in Mexico and then work in San Diego, right across the U.S. / Mexico International Border Crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Since his first job at the age of 14, David has always been enthusiastic about sales. He had worked at places like Foot Locker at the age of 15 and then Sears while a young adult. Just like he wanted more while living in Pottsville, he also felt that the retail life was not for him. Yes, he could do it and excelled at it, often being the top sales representative in his store, but he felt he could achieve bigger and better things. During the economic depression of 2008 – 2010, David found himself searching for answers. He moved to Peru for about a year, where he met his wife, Raquel Strausser. From there David immigrated Raquel to Mexico and they re-established themselves in the Baja Cali Megaregion. Employment was tough and while David could ultimately earn a living that was good enough for living in Mexico, their ultimate goal was to move to San Diego. The current wage environment at that time did not support him being able to make such a move. That’s when David realized that after 10 years of living in Mexico at that point that he had some unique skills. Not only was David fluent in Spanish and had a Mexican legal status as a Residente Permanente (Mexican Legal Permanent Resident), but he had many contacts in business throughout Mexico, Peru, and the rest of Latin America. Instead of taking a position where he would be grossly underpaid for his skillset out of necessity, David went another route. He started the business “Strausser Consulting Services” and began independent consulting. The goal of the company was to assist American companies trying to find growth throughout Latin America with their products and technologies. The start though wasn’t that simple. The very first contract David got was with a Sprint retailer who saw his vast retail experience and hired him as an independent consultant to help turn around 7 of their newly acquired stores in San Diego County. It was a six-month contract but it gave David something solid to run off of if he was successful. Success happened and from there David acquired separate large contracts over a 6 year period. While many of the projects were fixed-term and project based, some of the contracts were long-term. Some of these contracts were with companies like P.I.N.T., Inc., doing business development to help them break into the Mexican market, Kodenshi AUK, a Japanese and Korean semiconductor manufacturer looking to break into Latin America, TAAG Industries, BorderTraffic / LaLineaEnVivo, and BajaBound. This all was the passion of what David does best, help small to medium size business grow. He was creating new channels and opportunities for these businesses that they did not know how to achieve on their own. Interestingly enough, because of the unique border situation with the Baja-Cali megaregion of Tijuana and San Diego David was specializing at one point not just in technology, but border crossing technology. This lead to David developing extensive relationships with the Mexican Government, which led to him being contracted as the “Consejero Binacional” (Binational Advisor) to the Secretary of Tourism for Baja, California, Mexico where he worked in making lives easier for American Tourists while visiting Baja, Mexico with the promise of technology. David assisted trying to modernize the Tourist Visa process online for Americans visiting Mexico and even helped transform the fishing permit license so that Americans can obtain the licenses digitally online. All impressive feats at the time with a government that is notoriously slow in adopting new technology. In fact, David is one of the few non-Latino American citizens with a written letter of recommendation from the Mexican Government. ​ During that time also, David realized that there was a huge education gap in Mexico. Latinas, Mexican women specifically, were behind in their knowledge of how technology works. Although with the younger generation it was getting better, at that time if you were 25 or older and female, your understanding of basic technology was little to none. That’s when David and his wife Raquel created a tech blog called TechChicas that was dedicated to helping Latinas around the world understand basic technology that they could access to make their lives easier. The site was a success winning multiple awards including one from Penn State University. That service was sold in 2015 when David took another turn in his career. As successful as he was, the consulting world was a tiring one for David. Not only was he working 40 to 50 hours a week for clients, but he was also working an addition 20+ hours a week just trying to find new projects and bidding on new work. It was relentless and gave David no work / life balance. After 6 long years of sacrificing all his time working to give his family the life he felt they deserved, David finally got offered a position that would give him what he was searching for. David and his family moved to Los Angeles in December of 2015 to start with Vision33, Inc. ​ This brings a brand new chapter. Finally, David was able to use his networking skills, business development skills, sales and marketing strategies for one dedicated company. David was new to the ERP (enterprise resource planning) business but he had a thorough understanding of technology due to his degree from Penn State University in Information Sciences & Technologies with a focus on Business. David was able to use innovative techniques to turn a barren region of Los Angeles to a powerhouse for Vision33. Creating millions and millions of dollars a year in revenue that Vision33 never saw from that region previously. He did this because of the way he builds personal relationships with his clients and how he manages a sales cycle. There were very few opportunities David lost. In fact, he became the king of creating his own pipeline by doing creative events like his “Executive Luncheon” that had an anti-luncheon type there where desert was served first and used out of the box type of speakers that brought true value to all the businesses that came to learn how to grow their business and breakthrough the barriers preventing growth. After 4 years, David was given the opportunity to move back home. Vision33 had a new region that needed a General Manager to oversee it and that is the Northeast. Since March of 2018, David has been managing the Northeast from sales, implementations, customer service, everything where he is growing the business at a record pace. Even with the position that David currently has, he still feels that he has more to offer in order to help businesses grow and therefore on July 6, 2020, David launched the business podcast entitled Shark Bite Biz. This podcast is a discussion with subject matter experts and business owners discussing what works and what doesn’t in a global pandemic world. ​ Overall, David has had a tough, but fun career. It has always focused around one main topic though. Helping small to midsize businesses grow. There are many ways to do this and David uses his outside the box methodology in order to help his clients achieve that growth. Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #SacrificetoSuccess #Sharkbitebizpodcast Shark bite biz, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/Bki9lRhp8VE

The Science of CX podcast. How agents can positively handle negative BPO...

The Science of CX podcast. Key Takeaways Into More Productive Customer Engagements with Richard Blank The Science of CX is a groundbreaking new weekly podcast developed to address the millions of businesses that need to learn techniques to compete better in today’s business landscape, by using CX as the cornerstone of a new strategy. Join Steve Pappas in the lab as he puts his 25+ years to the test to make your business (soar, grow and accelerate). Getting to know Richard the man. How did he end up with such a large collection of restored pinball machines and jukeboxes?key ingredients to ensure an effective micro-expression conversationHow agents can positively handle and grow from negative calls and feedback from customersRunning a small business? Well tune in and find out what tips Richard has to help you leverage your everyday conversations into a goldmineTime and numbers. Find out whether or not it's productive to measure your employee’s efforts based on the number of hours or sales made Richard shares with us his unique and world-class system of training and mentoring new agents An exercise you can easily pick up in helping you become a better micro expression reader https://youtu.be/RJnuK2lPYFc?si=yrsPGin8LM1sXy5F https://youtu.be/AOPI8wCqX-0 Key Takeaways Learn how to turn new customers into the most loyal customers and be on the mind of everyone in town. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned expert, you will learn something useful in each and every episode. CXpert - interviews with CX Leaders and Influencers that have made it their business to treat customers like a million. Steve, will use his years of CX-Centric business knowledge to bring out cool ideas for every business owner to learn new techniques and also avoid some Steve has built a career transforming, growing, expanding and turning around businesses. He has created successful companies by delivering remarkable customer experiences. Steve makes sure each employee has the actionable knowledge necessary to make better decisions, build great culture and serve customers in a way that increases loyalty, referrals, sales and satisfaction.In his recent role with Panviva, the knowledge cloud company, Steve expanded the Australian software company successfully into the US to a market powerhouse position. Steve also advises many companies annually on their CX strategies. Industry associations, publications, and Fortune 500 companies invite him to speak and write about CX best practices in healthcare, finance, utilities, insurance, and telecommunications.A successful entrepreneur in his own right, Steve has built and sold six companies. He has spent many years cultivating his approach to CX and each company has held to the mantra of “the customer is at the center of the universe. In fact, his first CX initiative was a college Honors project where Steve redesigned the student registration system to ease the process of registering for classes and enhance the student registration experience. He then went on to running an Technology Division with over 12,000 employee customers, while working for one of the largest global government contractors. All the while addressing internal customer expectations and increase customer satisfaction and productivity.Next, he perfected the concepts of personalization with marketing automation tools to better target and deliver one-on-one communication with customer messaging. Now, Steve is focused on helping business leaders build great strategies to deliver the ultimate in customer experiences and drive their business to new heights.When he is not driving CX strategy or launching companies, Steve plays the guitar and mentors startup business. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and sons. you're listening to the science of C. X. A podcast that hopes to inspire business owners and leaders to learn new techniques and turn prospects into customers, enter customers into raving fans. My name is Steve Pappas. I'm known for my relentless pursuit of all thing’s customer across my career. And in my six startups, I've had to learn how to make decisions in business that customers really respond to. Let's spend some time together and help your business soar grow and accelerate. Well, welcome everybody to another episode of the science of C. X. I'm Steve Pappas, your host and as always, we look everywhere to find the experts that can help you in your business journey as well as your customer experience initiatives within your organization. Today is No exception. Today we're going to be talking about some remarkably interesting areas. We're going to cover a lot of material. Please take notes if you want or you can come back and listen to it multiple times because that makes it seem like we have more listeners. Hey, yeah, do that. Instead listen to this episode 3, 4 or five times. That'll do it. Anyway, we're going to be talking about advanced telemarketing strategies. We're going to be talking about conflict management, interpersonal skills, customer support, rhetoric, Gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Have I piqued your interest yet? Well, we have a gentleman on today. His name is Richard blank, and he comes to us from Costa Rica, and he is the head of a great business process, outsourcing contact center, but he's also an expert in so many different areas that we want to talk about. So why don't we bring him in from the virtual green room? You know, there's no real green room of course by now, but let's pretend he's coming in from the green room and we'll welcome him to the show. Richard, thanks for joining us today on the show. See, that's an amazing introduction. I'm so happy to be here, really enjoy your work and cannot wait to share amazing ideas with your audience today. That's great. Well, I'm going to give folks a little bit about your bio just so they understand where we're going to start from and maybe some interesting things about you too. So, Richard's journey in the car Contact center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in san Jose Costa Rica with a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric. Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10,000 bilingual telemarketers. I think he learned a few things along the way. Richard blank has the largest collection of restored American pinball machines and antique rock ola jukeboxes in central America making Gamification a strong part of Costa Rica Contact center. Culture. Richard blank is the chief executive officer for Costa Rica’s Call center since 2008. Richard also holds a bachelor's degree in communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla Spain, a keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School, 68th National Honor Society induction ceremony. Giving back to the high school is especially important to Richard as such. He endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. So, I've got to start Richard with the first part here that just jumped right at me as the largest collection of restored American pinball machines and jukeboxes. Now if anybody knows me, they know that I love pinball aside from playing guitar for the last for years. I love pinball, I don't quite go into the Galaga and those things that my wife loves but I love playing pinball. So, tell us what you have got, I'd love to know what kind of pinball machines you have Steve, I'm so glad that you started with dessert first and naturally our favorite class in school was recessed. So absolutely. I grew up in the seventies and eighties and the arcades were just some of the most amazing places to make friends and compete. It was so new and the artwork on the cabinets and the marquees, it really was an experience and always wanted that game room like Ricky Schroder and silver spoons. I was jealous. So, I wanted one and down here since I own a call center and I have the space, I go treasure hunting and one man's trash is another man's treasure and they just really do not know what they have in their bodegas. And so, I will find a machine and bring it back here. And with specialist I restore them now regarding my pinball machines. The oldest one that I have is a 1976 Bally's freedom. And one of the newer ones would be like, let's say a last action hero where a doctor who I have an M. B. A fast break in a mouse. And around I got Williams, space shuttle 1987 I got a judge Dredd Street fighter, two lethal weapon, three jokers, World cup hook and Jurassic Park. So, it turned out into a hobby became an obsession. And when you're a married man, you decide which hills to die on which swords to fall upon. And my wife and I have this agreement where pretty much everything is in her favor. But the one thing she knows that makes me happy of restoring these old classic jukeboxes and pinball machines because what an error and the craftsmanship and the fact that they've been preserved for decades shows that people really cared about these machines. Now you and I was awfully expensive growing up. So, it seemed like a luxury. But the fact that we can afford it. It really is something that I take full advantage of when I have the moments with just not my agents but myself. There's always a pinball marathon going on down here. Well, it's great that you have the employee engagement to do that. But I'll tell you, we had bought one, we had a terminator pinball machine at one point that had the gun for the pinball release, but it took so much to get it into the basement of the home that we were living in when we sold the house. We negotiated to sell the pinball machine, so I didn't have to get it out of there. It was so heavy to move, and I wasn't about to, but I have been in the market for another one right now. The prices are through the roof on all those two. I was looking for an Adam’s family or another terminator, but the Adams family was the one that kind of thrilled me and as well as jukeboxes, it's funny, we have a lot of similar interests in collection. I don't have any jukeboxes. I wanted to cut my teeth on the first one and I have a buddy in the UK that restores German jukeboxes and he's one of the largest in the world that restores those early seventies and eighties jukeboxes that were built in Germany. I think it was like N C D M or something like that and that's an interesting market. But let's get on to some of the other areas that we're going to talk about. I gave folks at the beginning of the episode, a lot of terminology that we're going to be talking about today. And one of the things that I really wanted to discuss, this idea of phonetic micro expressions, I don't know if our audience knows what that really is or maybe some do and of course they'll yell at me in the comments etcetera. But can we talk about these things because let's jump into some of these areas that we're going to get across and are these all used the things we're going to talk about? They all used in the contact center, and can you train people in all these areas? They're used in my call center and just depends on the sort of profiled agent that you have there. Let me take it back a bit. Everybody studies micro expression reading. There was a tv show called Lie to Me that specialized in where you can judge people's postures, their eyes, their face, their hands. I mean there's books and seminars about it now when you're on the phone, three of your senses are removed, your taste, touch and smell. And the scientists claim that when you do have one that is removed, your others expand. So, I expect you to do much more active listening and then people can also argue that you can't see people on the phone, but I beg to differ because there is image streaming, you have metaphysics when you read a book, it's better than the movie because of imagination. You can use more descriptions and more adjectives but let's just concentrate on the sound of speech. The average attention span is about 30 seconds to two minutes, conversations have introductions, bodies and conclusions. So, if you have a controlled environment, you can have a consistent variable and then you can see inconsistencies. So now we have a base of how we're going to study speech and 32nd segments. Okay your tone is what represents your emotion, and it should be confident and empathetic because that should be consistent on your end. People will talk about a mirror imaging technique Steve, and I agree with that. But you also need to know how you're speaking for your adjustments. So, your mirror imaging isn't about you sitting across from someone and crossing your arms and tapping a finger. No, you don't have that over the phone. So, eliminate any sort of mirror imaging face to face. I study the rate and the pitch. These are things that can be done in any language. I do not study semantics. The word choice. I'm studying the tone of your voice which is mine is consistent. I could care less what your tone is. That could be a flag or a mask, but you study someone's rate of speech and how loud they speak their pitch and every 30 seconds to two minutes. Think about the X. Y. Chart that you had in pre-algebra, you can see how fast or how loud they're going. You consistently market every 30 seconds to two minutes. I would back it up with an answering speed because that is something that you cannot control. It's more subconscious, you can manipulate your tone rate and pitch. But the professional interrogators and police officers’ usual throw the question in the fourth or fifth time to really judge the answering speed. So, if you can do that xy chart with a horizontal line behind it and kind of gauge from 0 to 10 where you're going, you will see areas of spikes or dips and in my opinion that's the time to ask a tie down or pin down question or clarification question. And these are certain times in which you're able to assist the conversation of moving forward for better clarification and it's not really giving away your power on that. You're really doing more of the Wuwei the less struggle the rudder of the ship. And so, this phonetic micro expression reading can be done just mind you this in your 1st 30 seconds. I don't know you and one is the loneliest number in your second minute. We could have a match off one and a one fast and high, low and slow by five at least. You might have an odd man out in regard to your quadrants because after you've gone all four quadrants you have to repeat a quadrant, but most of the time people are in quadrant, on the top and the fast and so by your 10th 30 seconds to two minutes. Think about it like this, it's about 4. 5 to 5 minutes on something like that. And by your 11th you should know how somebody is speaking that's 5. 5 minutes in on a 10-minute conversation. And by then you will know how to close the deal. And so, once you see it you can't unsee it. After three weeks it becomes habit and once you start paying attention to it it becomes very lucid and clearer. You are not lying and I'm not manipulating but these people are obviously giving away certain tell signs on how they speak on first time or even long term conversations and if you do catch somebody being facetious or not as clear, maybe ask them to repeat it using other senses or using another example to see if they're consistent. And so, I think it's an excellent way not to be offensive because passive aggressively you could once again use a me-too technique with somebody. Let's just say you can't hear them. It's a bad connection on a cellphone or a dog is barking in the background. I try to fall on that small sword instead of placing blame on them, it's for my clarification Steve, did you say 123 or ABC because the worst thing you could ever do Is have somebody so upset and go down rabbit holes because now you need to restart your phonetic micro expression, reading the Tarot Card Reader said you could read two different reads in 10 minutes depending if it's sunny or raining, same person, same hour, but it could be a different read. So, the greatest thing you could do is to ride that weight and keep it at that apex if you can. It's like when people said lucid dreaming, you really don't want to readjust your body to be able to keep that consistent breathing and body posture. With someone that you're speaking with, you try to keep them as consistent as possible. There's a little wiggle room there but don't go extreme and if you can handle something like that, fall on these swords, get clarification. I think your audience would have some extremely effective conversations with people on the first time. This is a remarkably interesting area because we do have an awful lot of folks that either work in contact centers or are managing contact centers or even outsource to contact centers. And the training of agents tends to be remarkably similar in most organizations but they're not thinking about how they can better control they’re usually using the approach where gee I'm sorry you're having that problem. So, they're falling on the sword most of the time. But if you think about the calls, right? If you think about the types of calls that come in, I mean they're not picking up the phone because they're just calling to say thank you or their colleagues to say gee what an excellent product this is. They're usually picking up the phone or they're making a contact with them because there's an issue, there's some type of an issue either they don't understand, they don't know how to fill out, they don't know how to do something or there's a more negative issue. So, if you think about the incoming approach that happens, a lot of it tends to be negative. And unfortunately, the contact center agents these days are feeling increasingly of society's negativity coming out of the pandemic. You know, because people who are very understanding more, more understanding during the pandemic, but they’re taking it out on front line people. So, I don't know how you guys have seen things. But from the folks that I've spoken to in the last few months, it seems like most of the calls are key issues and they have to diffuse right away. So can they use the phonetic micro expression method that you talk about to kind of even the playing field and get them to calm down so that they can explain what their issue is better rather than they're ready to blow up at any moment type of thing. Sure. And I'm glad that you brought that up, that's a subject that I can easily address and apply the phonetic micro expression read because mind you my friend you could start the call yelling and cursing and at the end thanking them. So naturally your phonetic micro expression reading might be adjusted with raid and Fitch. But I would never say that I'm sorry unless you specifically spilled the drink or broke the window because then you might get offended because this individual speaking with you is so nice, they didn't do it but they're apologizing for someone else's broken window. So, my suggestion from my agents immediately is to thank you Steve for sharing that with me. I understand your position didn't mean that I agree with it, but I understand your position and allow me a moment to make it work and fix it for you. And so now the audience, your client coming in, guns a blazing isn't really putting all that anger at the individual because that individual did not make that problem. They're taking the shrapnel; you say the incoming. That's a wonderful way to use it incoming Obama grenade. But I like to defuse. There's a technique that I use called the buffer boomerang technique. And so, if somebody comes at me with a negative tone, I will like sponge and buffer that negative tone. I will name drop you and say Steve. That's an excellent question, repeat back your question what it was to show active listening. So, there's a connected key lock there and then boomerang it back as a plus three. So, I could potentially my friend readjust the tone and the pace of the call to then put it back into that phonetic micro expression reading that you need to really nail it. But I believe that people are frustrated and mind you this there's a lot more omnichannel non voiced support. So, prior to that phone call they might have filled out a couple forms, send a couple of emails that only elevates the stress. So, when they're calling, they're almost letting off steam. And if you allow them to speak, you'd be surprised how it goes from attend to it to both in pitching the rate they cry it out and then everyone calms down. You've taken copious notes. Now, Steve, you mentioned A B. C. And D. What about the Richard? Thank you, Steve. And e there's nothing wrong with raking and reviewing and meeting minutes. It's I can't just solve it with you with a magic potion. These things, someone is coming to you emotional, they don't know you you might need to repeat your name multiple times in third person because now they're embarrassed. Three men it's in to ask your name Steve. So, you could say okay at the end of this call, Richard, you're going to say Steve. You really helped me out in this section you know, oh thank you Steve. Great. I got them I anchored. And so, these are certain soft skills to just be polite, show your manners, Take that certain control of a conversation, more of a shepherd with its sheep. They zigzag but they still go back in the barn. So, I don't need so many jagged edges. There are no straight lines in nature and and I love empathy with somebody because when I use your name, I will usually use it in a transitional sentence or confirmation. And then during the conversation I will use personal pronouns as you know the yours and ours just to make sure that I'm keeping your conversation going in your attention and then landing in the bomb when I dropped the name drop and you should take these calls every 30 seconds to two minutes because as you say, they could change. But this gives you an excellent chance, my friend, if you really want to look at it logically that if somebody is calling in, you have a chance to retain the client, you have the chance to up sell them. If that's what you're doing, you could get a referral out of it. But look at it like this, let's say we drop the ball. Worst case scenario, this individual will take the time to do an exit interview and tell us areas in which we could have improved or what our competition had done to earn their business and as long as you're willing to keep an open mind and I don't like the word constructive criticism. I mean you fumbled the ball; you should have known what you were doing. Then just call the balls and the strikes and let you know that you made this error and learn from it and don't do it again. And these are the sort of things call by call person by person instead of doing 100 calls a day Steve. Why don't you have your agents take 95? They're taking extra couple three minutes on the phone to let Mr. jones relax a little bit. That is the secret to the successor old school style. This is interesting because as you're explaining some of these tips and techniques, it occurs that it doesn't just apply in the contact center world. I mean this could be if you're a brick-and-mortar store, it could be your pizza place. There could be people calling because hey, you got the wrong toppings on my pizza. The delivery was wrong or there could be all kinds of things, but it applies to all areas of business and people running small businesses could learn from these same techniques. Don't you agree? This could save a thanksgiving dinner. A marriage. These are just diplomatic soft skills of attentive listening and prioritizing, but I couldn't agree with you more and I never even shared with you. My favorite technique. It's the positive escalation when I call a place and people always give the gatekeeper a bad rap. But these are the individuals that the CEO and the owners love the most and they're the first impression and the strongest warrior of the tribe. They're the first one there, representing them in the best light. And so, for me, I'd like to understand their protocol. I like to properly introduce myself and say the name of their company and ask how their company is doing sometimes better than they do just to at least give them a taste of how I speak instead of just immediately asking to speak to you Steve. And then if this individual decides to transfer me the first thing, I'm going to let them know prior to the transfers that they did an excellent job. And I will be mentioning that verbally to the owner of the company and at the conclusion of the call with the owner of the company, I will also mention that in writing. So, if I happen to call your company back, the Richard Circle's complete because this individual remembers me, and I've heard dozens and dozens of times. I thank you and saying I've been here for a decade and you're the first person that wrote about me to Mr. jones. And these are individuals that will tell you anniversaries and promotions or no Steve’s direct extensions. 1 25 calms on Thursdays at two. Thank you, Catherine. I appreciate it and I love them to death. Those are the greatest insiders. It's a plethora of information and the moment that you start bullying your way in there or pretending they're waiting for your call or your insistent. That's why they're there to hang up on you. But there's a certain way to be not clever, but you have 30 seconds to make a first impression. Half of that is your speech her speech and give a couple of seconds of silence. So, you really got about 12 seconds to speak. That's not a lot. My suggestion is to say things that they're most familiar with which is the name of their company and their own name and then you got to do your own name as well because you can't be anonymous. The whole call that's shady. You can use a little bit of that in the beginning by just doing a name spike in a proper introduction and if you get the past to pitch, you have the momentum and then you do once again that sort of escalation. It It seems to work for me because it separates you from hundreds if not thousands of people that are prospecting that business interesting back to the contact center for a second. You talked about have your agents take 95 calls instead of 100 but most of the contact centers that I've dealt with over the past 20 plus years. They're driven by their average handle time. They're driven by the numbers to some degree. They're even told when they're going to the bathroom. How do you resolve that to a contact center manager that is just driving everything by the numbers. So, you're an intake coordinator for a law firm for lawsuits against firings or disabilities and somebody calls in and they happen to become emotional for a minute. What are you going to do Steve look at the clock and say Mrs. jones. Please hurry up. I only have two more minutes to talk to you. You know what would happen? It wouldn't be for the client or for me, the agent might resign on something like that. So as much as we want to stick to certain metrics, you're talking about an artist of speech. Somebody that is in the moment that's in the now that wants to assist this individual the best way that they can and by limiting their ability to build that sort of rapport or to allow someone to get it out. Which could be the key to closing the deal or to Upsell for something or to get that referral. I don't do things like that. Now we're not doing extreme where someone's doing 50 calls a day instead of 100. But you can see there's an average but that's what it's called an average and if you say you just want to look at conversion ratios. Look at that too. But everyone once again is an artist and they have their own special sauce and some people are graded intros, other bodies, other conclusions. But my goodness gracious is somebody is in the moment and they're connecting with someone and they're standing up instead of sitting down and you could tell they have the glaze where they're not staring at anyone. They're just thinking of the client, and everyone can see them doing this. You don't think that that energy spreads on the floor. You don't think that that's important as well. That sort of synergy. So, these rigid centers that judge you on your bathroom breaks and your handling time you're going to break the agent. I mean you can do that and grind it out, but you might have an attrition rate. But if I give somebody the ability to expand on a call and to be themselves my friends. So, they're not just plastic and going through the motions then I can create an ace, I can create a leader. I can create someone that will come to me at the conclusion of the call and say you know, Mrs. jones started crying. I go she alright, She goes, yeah, it took a couple more minutes but I connected her through to the counselor and I gave additional notes because we had to speak about her husband just passing away and the fact that she has to move and other things that would have never been qualifying the call because you're supposed to be asking her just certain questions but know this individual added additional things and then they say, thank you for listening. You're the different company than the ones before that. Just put me through the assembly line and you know that it's the mom and pop. It's the bed and breakfast. You'd rather go to the small hardware store sometimes because you know the man, I'll drive an extra couple of miles from my favorite restaurant Steve. That's the sort of the science that you're talking about. It's amazingly simple. It's how you feel and how you were treated. What about the price? What about the price? Sometimes it's worth the money. It's not always about saving a dollar. It's about supporting your business or if I'm having a day with some blues, you come over to me and just let me know you're happy that I'm there and you sit with me for a second. So, as we get older, my friend, those are the sort of relationships that we see at businesses and you, and I understand that the grind and we also understand when your favorite client walks through the door. So, I like to pay that forward the best that I can. Absolutely. So, I went down that path and I think your answer and your philosophy is brilliant. Unfortunately. I mean it's the way I believe too that the contact center folks in an organization should be revered because they are your front line. They hold things together. They are the impetus for the referral the up sell the further sell the expansion all those things. Yet still in today's world, C E O s don't always think that way. They look at a contact center as a cost center rather than the proper way of looking at it as it's an expansion center. It's a focus group. It's the lifeblood of the company because those folks have the most contact with our customers post sale, they become the hub of the post-sale journey and unfortunately maybe it'll take another generation before enough sea level folks understand that. So that brings me more to the conversation of culture. How do we develop a culture in our contact centers especially and I know this can spill out into the rest of the business, but how can we develop a culture that rewards and reveres the contact center agents as being the customer success vehicle, the people that help our customers become more successful using our products and our services. You must look at it Two ways. If you yourself are not centered in balance, it would be exceedingly difficult to expand and to think of others. I can't hit the ball and drag johnny as much as my agents here have become bilingual, which shows structure and dedication over years outside the classroom. I expect them to do the same thing if they're thinking about being a telemarketer as a profession besides the eight hours that they put in here, they should be doing dedicated practice outside of the center, reading in English watching certain movies or speeches so they can take certain parts of rhetoric that inspired them. That they saw transitional sentences or effective. You could do case studies in history and find out certain speeches that moved people. And then secondly, I mentioned the word synergy. These individuals were a very social environment. If you and I are working out at the gym Steve, we're going to be pumping each other up to put up three or four more on the bar and put more plates up. So, I expect the audience, the agents to feed off their energy and to share ideas and to pick someone up when they're feeling down. As I mentioned, I created a Gamification culture. So, I have a place where people can let off steam, recharge batteries hang out with me and meet people from other departments. So that assists me in one way. But also, since once again English is their second language. The fact that they are getting a return on investment. I see that these agents are much more focused for intense periods of time because of the translation. So, it's less area for distraction. But here's the best part my man regarding my culture when I first came down here 27 years old, I didn't start sea level of my friends call center. I taught English decided to stay and then worked at the center and so I was with the proletariat for four years, I went through so many departments. I saw the good and the bad and what it did for me was it enabled me to see areas to enhance it for the agent and for the client to give them their dignity, so they don't feel like robots are expendable. And when I had the opportunity to start this business, they couldn't fool me because I was on the phone, I've done this before and I hate to say it, I'm not bragging but I am the sin save my dojo in this industry where people burn out and they look down upon it, I thrived really excelled. But I saw the art in it. Look at it like this, you're very selective of the campaigns that come in here, we're in a strict catholic country. They must go home and tell their parents what they do. If I brought in something gray area or shady, no one would take it. So I'd have no friends of my chuck e cheese birthday party and so you have to do an account to not only where the client feels okay offering it, but the Asian would feel comfortable making the calls because if it's a forced fit, if it's out of place and out of character, they're not going to last long, they're not going to sound natural and we're not giving anything real specific here. But as I say, I must ensure that what I'm bringing into this call center something where I'm able to fulfill the needs. Now I can add scripts and suggestions, but initially it must be something that just does not compromise any sort of ethics interesting. Well, let's cover a little bit more because I'm fascinated by not only the culture, but the organization that you've built to help organizations that want to outsource their contact center. So, we could talk a little bit about your training, you're coaching your mentoring methods and then what does the knowledge base look like for your agents to always do a better job? Because quite frankly, I mean you're going to do as good or better a job than the company you're representing because you're going to keep the account and you're going to keep them happy and keep them over the course of a lifetime. So how do you train differently? How do you coach and mentor folks and keep them so that you don't have the attrition level that a lot of places have today. That's a wonderful question real fast in regards to attrition, I have more of a natural attrition than a forced attrition because companies such as amazon hp intel and oracle and Sykes are here, so I'll lose somebody for a scheduling conflict for the university of boyfriend or girlfriend works there closer to their home, very rarely, if not never someone will say that I insulted them, yelled at them, gave them the walk of shame. It's just maybe an ex-employee with some sour grapes. I treat everybody with dignity, and I look for ways to delegate and promote them, but initially it's really the psychology prior to any sort of skill set. So, fear is a morbid anticipation of things that haven't happened yet. The fact that they learned a second language is 10 times harder than any campaign. I'll put them on. I also believe in the right bus, right seat philosophy. And so, when they come into the call center besides starting their day playing pinball to make friends and relax a little bit. We really do focus on quality assurance so we can grade their calls for certain metrics. But I try to do certain breakthroughs like when they're filling out their resumes with me and putting in all their credentials, I'll ask them to turn the page over Steve and give me a couple of paragraphs of a coming of age moment, let me know when you beat up a bully or save the kitten from a tree. And so, I could use this when they're having a rainy Wednesday to remind them of when they were a champion. These are things they always have in them. It's just a matter of getting it out and keeping it consistent and so let's just say in the first day of class, it's especially important not just to lecture them when they just nodded you and walk out the door. You need to have checkpoints; you need to have interaction. You can go over a certain segment and then just maybe have somebody stand up in front of class and read the next paragraph. Why? Because you're triple gunning. They're reading out loud their public speaking, they're doing it in front of the boss. Imagine those sorts of butterflies you would have, but if you could triple or quadruple your training daily where then you go upstairs, you record yourself reading the script, where you're practicing it. You're not just reading it, you're speaking into a recording device, then you're listening to it and then you're doing a self-analysis for self-adjustments over the things we spoke about. You'll know when you're pausing is off or when you're too loud or too best. Are you stuttered or mispronounced a word and I'm allowing you Steve to write it out phonetically, at least learn how to spell it. But the vowels are sometimes tricky for Latinos, so it's okay to be able to switch things around so it's pronounced a certain way, and these are the sort of adjustments, minor adjustments that we make for somebody to feel more comfortable initially. So, they don't pick up unhealthy habits and kind of like bedside manner. I can't stress enough; the name drops and the act of listening and the confirmations because people feel much more comfortable when they're being listened to, and you are taking your meeting minutes and if we need to repeat something in the military alphabet. A it shows that you're extremely involved and engaged in the conversation. A lot of the times people served in the military, so they think that's cool and you're not just making up words and going along. These people know that you are actively trying to spell their name, their email address correctly. And so, I've seen the tens of thousands of phone calls. That that's the most effective way of not to offend somebody when you can't hear them well or they have an exotic name or if it's something where you just say, yeah, okay, but the next thing, you know, your email bounces back. It would have been better off to confirm if it's L for lima, you know, and just to make sure that you got it. And as I say, these are the sort of things like in school, you come to class, you do your homework and you do your quizzes, you can still not do so well on the final exam, but you're going to pass the class, you will be preparing yourself and marinating and softening up the call in the relationship in order to convert it. And sometimes my friends, it happens a second or third time don't expect a cold call close. I tell my clients to put their checkbook away. A lot of the times, I just want to answer their questions and show credentials and reintroduce them to other people on the floor that they can meet and make a better decision. So don't feel rushed. People will see that, and they will be apprehensive to move forward with you. So let it happen at a natural pace. So, you said something about you QC. All the calls and I think I remember you were talking about your Hall of Fame, you know, the best and the worst calls. I mean is that used as a training method for everyone to understand both the good and the bad types of calls. Absolutely. Remember you were mentioning earlier about people calling in the first round of calls coming where people are upset if they can ride that wave and they see the bark is, there's no bite. It's just barking and that we calmed mars jones down. We listened to Mrs. jones, we separated piles, we were able to move forward. The call didn't take that long because we didn't have to repeat things because we were confirming things. We eliminated rabbit holes. We did the mirror imaging. We did the phonetics; we did the drops. It's beautiful. Now you have this toolbox. It's not a to Z. There are steps that can be skipped or moved back to how about we look at it like this? I loved romantic tragedy. So, I consider that a hang up call is a romantic death. Where am I going with this? Let's just say you're just hardcore carpet bombing, making outbound calls and no matter what you say, you're calling a place that she says, don't call again or not interested or we're good. Thanks, and hang up. I always look at it like this. If you can do a company named spike and do a name, drop of the individual before they hang up on you. I think that's a beautiful death. I think at least poor lome knows you got something out of that call. But then they wouldn't be surprised that you could anchor yourself by just getting them out of that trance by saying their name in that 1st 30 seconds. I've had Times where we bought another minute, bought another three minutes and just by default, nothing on our own. We couldn't move forward. I'll give you an example. People can call me, and we could be on the phone and 99% were ready to sign the contract. But then they ask if we do Chinese, I don't have Chinese agents, I don't do graveyard shift and I can't match offshore prices India and the Philippines. So just by that alone, I'm not able to move forward, but 99% fit. So how do I feel about that? A little disappointed. But then again, I was able to go 15 rounds lost on the decision, but I was still able to make my points listen to their points build rapport, have some labs introduce, fantasize good call. So, another couple of questions, what type of companies or what type of industries do you guys mostly handle calls for inbound or apa? Well, I'll let you know five. We don't do, we don't do sports books, casino stocks, pharmacies or sweepstakes. I have nothing against it. Just don't want to do it. But I'm looking for small to medium sized companies in the United States, Canada Central America and Europe that would need individuals to make outbound lead generation, appointment setting or inbound customer support. And it's amazingly simple. Our agents are college educated; they're dedicated. I don't have a blended or mixed center. They only work for your campaign, and they have some amazing skill sets here. Costa Rica really packs a punch regarding business process outsourcing. I have mentioned some of the big boys, but there are tons of call centers here and since we're the only democratic society in central America, they don't have a standing army. So, there's a 95% literacy rate Steve so as much as people might see telemarketing call centers as transitional sort of jobs or something in the United States, as you say, has a certain rap here. It pays more than most vocation. So, I'm having some extremely educated bilingual people with degrees walking in this door and working with me. So, it's amazing the sort of people that you meet here. Very eclectic, all diverse types. That's great. So, if a company called and says, okay, we want to get started, what is that initial onboarding looks like time wise especially and system wise and how quickly can you be up and running to take their calls? Great. Well let's just say I accept the vertical and I'm comfortable with that. There's a pre-launch checklist that my floor manager and chief technical officer sent to that company. It's exceedingly difficult for me to start moving forward without stations being set up connections, made scripts for bottles, reporting and contact because once the ads go out and people come in, it's really a seller's market. I got to be able to explain it to their candidates a, the campaign that they're doing the incentives that they have and the metrics that they're expecting. It just can't be fantasy time. It needs to be something that's concrete. And so, once we bring the people in, it really all depends on the training time. I've had people go as low as a half a day just to teacher CRM and do a little bit of role play for fun and others do longer training sessions, even up to a month. That concerns me because we do follow all Costa Rican labor laws and there are certain call centers that are known for like for an example, sykes has the MetLife account and supposedly people will be there for an entire month training and then on their first day of coming back to work, they just don't show up. And by Costa Rican labor law, they need to get paid for that month they go on a certain list as being a jumper and it's not fair, but that's the name of the game. So, the longer the training, the more I'm concerned because people sometimes can take advantage of that and just use that as a placeholder until they can find another job. So, if we have certain awfully specific checkpoints to ensure that this agent really has done their due diligence, really engage really up to speed. That's a good risk compared to just doing five days’ worth of classroom, talking about merchant process outsourcing and stuff like that. It needs to be awfully specific, and I have to ensure that this client that I'm speaking with does have a track record. If it's a brand-new pilot project, then we need to invest in the process and there shouldn't be any surprises and I must let them know what to expect when building a campaign, there may be attrition. We may need to readjust the script, call certain area codes, or do certain things. But I guess the most important thing about it is being forthright, when it comes to onboarding people, I can easily have somebody in five business days, depending if you need 10 people give me up to 10 business days, you know, and maybe we can hire people piecemeal, we can catch them when certain campaigns and other centers and as I mentioned, it's very competitive out there. The more that you put out the start date, the more that you're going to lose people because they need a job between those times and now since Covid came, it really adjusted to the work from home. So there is an advantage of the brick and mortar because of internet redundancy, my generator and on site I. T. Support but Steve, I was exceptionally fortunate during Covid to be able to adjust my business model virtually because if I owned a brick and mortar only like a bike shop or a pizza parlor, I'm in big trouble as much as I lost a lot of the essence of the center and the camaraderie? I was able to survive. But you know, the labor pools changed. I must ensure if there is training, they should be on site to know the company culture and at least meet us before going home. It's one of those things my friend where I really did see a huge shift that when I first started this back in 2000, that's great. Well, in the last few minutes that we've got, you know, I'd ask you whether we could give our listeners an exercise. We talked about the two-paragraph coming of age. Can you explain an exercise that folks can do as homework after they listen to this episode. And that might be interesting for them to learn more about the content that we gave them here today and then when we come back maybe you can give folks a way of getting in touch with you guys if that's something that they're looking for. Thanks Steve, I appreciate it. Let people do the Triple watch. They should watch something without sound, they should watch something without sight. And if you want to study the visual body language, that's great. Just watch something without sound. You can assume what they're doing and then if you want to study the phonetics, to choose a channel that you don't understand the language. Like for me it would have to be Chinese or German or something like that. Italian French and Portuguese are too like Spanish for me. But if I watch the Chinese channel, it's extremely easy for me to do that phonetic micro expression reading because I don't understand any semantic. So even I'm taking out the tone, I'm just studying their rate in their pit. Do not get study it that way while you're on the phone, once again these are things that you can do. You just draw your xy chart the horizontal line and every 30 seconds to two minutes point to how Mr. Jones's speaking just for practice, but it is about practice. It's about dedicated practice. Record yourself, listen to yourself. I don't like how I sound. That's what everybody says. But guess what you that's what you got. So, you need to adjust it and as you and I have a mirror and our beards look great because we do look great. You could do the same thing with your voice as well. Record it, master it adjusted. And if you do that, you'll see that you'll get more positive reinforcement from people. There will be more I guess inclined to ask you for advice because you were sympathetic about it and the way you spoke about it and finally if you are in a certain situation where there's emotion and its tense, you should choose to speak last. And if it's not something where you need to immediately give an answer then you should sleep on it so you can decompress and come back the next day a little more levelheaded and prioritize and that's an excellent way to grow and to crack some codes and to get to various levels. You don't always need to prove your point at that moment. There are other ways to do it. So, you don't overreact overextend and say something you regret. So, it's not like you're being weak. No, you're being considerate of it and you're being tactful about it. If you're in the moment and its face to face with somebody if you must, even though it looks funny, you should close your eyes when speaking. So, there's less distraction and you're not energy being sucked from you. They might say why you close your eyes. I'm allowed. There's no rules to this. It's not tag you're asking me something emotional, so allow me my focus and my balance and if somebody is being aggressive with you, I think you should look in between their eyes, it looks like you're looking in their eyes. So it's not like you're looking away or allowing them to suck the energy out of you, like Medusa, but it is a certain technique sir where instead of losing your direction and your energy and your breathing, you can regroup yourself and these are the sort of conflict management skills that have assisted me and having more productive conversations when they could have really gotten out of hand. That's great. I mean this has been filled, filled with great techniques, tips and insight as well. Thank you for being so generous with your expertise. This has really been a wonderful episode, Richard. How can people get in touch with you if they're thinking about outsourcing if they're thinking about needing a contact center because I think by the end of this, they understand what you bring to the table. So how can they get in touch with you? I really appreciate having me on the show today with you, your audience and allowing me to share this information. The first thing they should do, my friend is by a first-class plane ticket. Come down here to Costa Rica so you can enjoy some eco-tourism, go to some beaches and waterfalls but your audience can give me a call at triple 82716750. Or send me an email. CEO Costa Rica’s call center dot com. And finally have an exceptionally large Facebook fan page about 98,000 local Costa Rican Ticos. And they can't wait to meet you, Steve. You're going to have tens of thousands of new fans in central America. I can't wait. Well, Richard, thanks again for joining us today. I really love the thing that you said earlier and I'm going to add something to it. So, each agent is a voice artist, and this is a message to all the C E. O. S out there that have contact centers and folks that have agents working for them that each agent is a voice artist and I think you should let them create a great interaction. So let them create, let them build those great interactions. So that's it for our episode of the Science of C. X. I'm Steve Pappas, your host. We've had Richard blank on today from Costa Rica call center and I want to thank you all for joining us. If you like the content that we bring to you, please feel free to drop us a review wherever you get your podcasts and until we meet again, please stay safe. Stay healthy and do take care everyone. Bye bye. You've been listening to the science of C. X. My name is Steve Pappas. I really hope you've enjoyed this episode and if you have the highest compliment that you can give us is to subscribe rate and review the science of C. X. Thanks. And we'll see you in the next episode. Finding one place to see all customer experience related tools of technology has been difficult until now. We just built it. Get ready for a science of C. X. Original customer experience technology has been helping to drive businesses by giving them insights into better methods to engage and delight their customers for some time now. But if you're looking for C. X. Tech you must search everywhere to understand the whole landscape. C. X stash is your simple why stop directory of all the Great Sea X related technology you need. It breaks down all C. X by collections like analytics, crm, journey mapping, voice of the customer, you ex customer support and more. It's free to create an account and use no advertising. Cluttering up your experience just one place to find all the great C. X. Tech. Sign up today at www. Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #SacrificetoSuccess #Scienceofcx Science of CX, The Forgotten Art Project, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, https://youtu.be/RJnuK2lPYFc?si=yrsPGin8LM1sXy5F https://youtu.be/AOPI8wCqX-0