Effective Strategies for B2B Calls.

Business growth on purpose podcast Episode 160: Keys to Connecting with New People with Richard Blank Welcome to Business Growth On Purpose hosted by Jose Palomino, CEO of Value Prop Interactive. Every week, you'll hear insights from leading B2B growth experts and veteran business owners from around the world. You'll also hear Jose's own insights gained from a few decades of B2B sales and marketing experience. The result is THE show for B2B Owners who are hungry for growth, stuck on a revenue plateau, or just want better ways to deal with the everyday challenges of revenue growth. If you need help taking the next steps to take control of your business growth, come check out what we're doing at ValueProp.com. Most business owners will tell you that who you know is just as important as what you know when it comes to growing your business. You may be among the brightest in your field, but if you don't know how to meet new people (and the right people), your business will struggle. Today's guest is Richard Blank of Costa Rica's Call Center. Richard is an entrepreneur who has built a full-blown business south of the border interacting with American companies with a bilingual call center. In this episode, he will share some insights into his journey, and what he sees happening in the business world, and as a special treat, we are going to get some "secret sauce" on making effective B2B calls. Adaptability and the Value of Brick and Mortar Call Centers Wonderful. Well, adaptability, of course. The Costa Rican labor law said that we couldn't have more than 50% of the people on site. I chose to make it 20%, and the agents that were here were for PCI compliance, onboarding. Let's just say something happens in their home in regards to internet redundancy, electricity, or failing equipment, they could always be at my station or at my call center for a turnkey station within a half an hour. But call centers are brick and mortar. A lot of the clients like the fact that people are here for that support. This is a synergy environment unlike other businesses where people may not converse or relate to one another. All we do is talk. And so on the floor, you could feel that energy. Creating a Unique Call Center Culture Well, you know, I mean, human nature is always going to be on a bell curve, right? There's going to be some people that just function a certain way and on either end. And it sounds like you've created an environment which you can, one is you can communicate what your culture is about. So that's going to attract certain people and other people going to want no part of it. Some people want to be anonymous. You know, people, there are people who prefer to be very anonymous, don't want to ever grow. They just want to do that, like punch in, punch out. And if you have an environment, if you create an environment which allows that people maybe some more spark, to say, this is a place, maybe not day one, but eventually I can grow into that. And again, because it's smaller, it's not a team of 10,000 people, whatever a large call center would have. I think that's very exciting. Effective Strategies for B2B Calls like me. We're on a conversation. You asked me the second buffer boomerang question. Richard, what do you do? I'm so glad that you brought that up. This is what we do. And what the problem is with some people is they do desert pitching. They will talk for five minutes without any sort of oasis to drink and to rest. So if I'm naming you four things, I'm going to take your vertical and try to horizontal and try to put it into a vertical. I will mention the first thing that we do and almost like a dessert tray where I will wait for a positive or a negative reinforcement from you. So I will say A, B, C. Oh, you like C. So we take it from horizontal, go to vertical. And I start open-ended questioning, stacking you. So I'll be asking you questions for more of these explanations. And then I will be raking by saying, I'm sure you like at least one. So out of the whole list that I do, I'm sure that you like at least one of these things. https://youtu.be/oiFduoa-Vl0 https://youtu.be/HfH2CDmfENw https://youtu.be/IwoGPjwH40o https://youtu.be/xXlEzKA6y4k Business Growth On Purpose Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica as an expat. Topics discussed with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation, phonetic micro expression reading. 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 #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #businessgrowthonpurpose Empathy in Call Center Management Sure. My friend did an excellent job, but whatever profession you're at, an environment, sometimes it lacks empathy. And what I wanted to make sure, especially in this call center industry where there's turnover and burnout, that people are not treated like a robot, they're not expendable, and they're not just a number. And so as long as you know somebody's name, put them on a level playing field and prepare them and treat them with some dignity, there's no reason why your attrition could be reduced. And you could get the best out of people. And so I just saw from being a Philly boy, just to roll up my sleeves, know people's name, walk the rows with them, train them. I have a gamification culture. So I like to play pinball and Pac-Man with my agents. And so maybe I just did it the old school way. Okay. Just by knowing your name and treating it with that sort of respect. Why Visit Costa Rica? We have a 95% literacy rate and the best infrastructure. And I mentioned before, companies like HP into Oracle and Amazon are here. So we pack a punch. And finally, our ecotourism. Besides coming to visit me for business, imagine going to waterfalls, beaches, ziplining, and seeing all the monkeys and iguanas coming up to your room. And it's a direct flight. I mean, we're so close to the United States. It's just a couple hours and you'll be down here. And so I encourage everyone and anyone to come visit me in the land of Pura Vida. Transforming Strangers into Allies And so if your audience takes a 30 seconds to two minutes active listening, making sure you're raking, asking tie down questions, positive escalations, I think you'll be very successful. And so that to me will reduce any sort of fear or apprehension about making these business-to-business calls because strangers are friends you haven't met yet. And Catherine could be a plethora of information in regards to business growth on purposes, company culture, an anniversary, a promotion, your direct extension, Villanova University. You never know. Everything can come up and be named. And so this individual is very, very valuable. So instead of trying to angle and sidestep them, no, use this person as an ally. Handling Distractions During Virtual Meetings what happens if there's a dog barking or a child in the background? We are making these Zoom calls and you do have distractions in the background. My suggestion, Jose, is to use the Me Too technique. I love dogs and inadvertently and passive aggressively, I can tell you how much I love your dog. That's barking. I will be the active listener by asking you what's the dog's name.