Arcade Training Method. #gamification #pinball #arcade #business #entre...

Inappropriate Growth Podcast by Paul Angelle. Leadership and Starting a Business with Richard Blank. Paul Angelle welcomes Richard Blank, who shares his journey to Costa Rica and insights on leadership, the call center industry, and time management. Richard offers advice for starting a business in Costa Rica and discusses the benefits of podcasting. Specialized Virtual support for your law firm At Stafi, we’re not just staffing providers—we’re growth partners. Our goal is to help your firm thrive, enabling you to focus on winning cases while we handle the rest. Whether you need to fill multiple full-time paralegal roles, find the perfect assistant to handle intake and marketing, or just need some help with the phones after-hours, Stafi has your back. Richard Blank, our latest guest on Inappropriate Growth, shared his unconventional journey to starting a business in Costa Rica. It began with a passion for languages, a spark that no traditional education system could extinguish. He went above and beyond, spending his weekends and evenings pouring over books, watching movies, and engaging with people to grow this passion. His grades might not have been Ivy league standard, but his determination caught the attention of a dedicated Spanish teacher who, along with the late principal Norman Schmidt, believed in him and got him into Arizona for their language program. But how did he convince his parents to let him pursue this path instead of the traditionally coveted fields like Ivy League education or medicine? He invoked his great grandparents. Sounds intriguing, right? Richard's story is a testament to the fact that the road less traveled can sometimes lead to the most exciting destinations. His dedication and commitment to his passion is truly inspiring, and a reminder to us all that success is not always linear. Tune into this episode of Inappropriate Growth to hear Richard Blank's fascinating journey. Who knows, it might just spark your own path less traveled. Arcade Training Method I'm not saying that, I look at it like this, I bend, but I don't break. And my rhetoric is really just practicing rebuttals with you. My rhetoric is asking you, OK, is this too tough for you, Paul? Let's pretend Paul's coming in for the first day. You judge me, my man. So before you even go into a training class, I bring you into the arcade so you can play some pinball and Pac-Man and some air hockey. So at least you're chilling for the first half of the people in mid. That's number one. Number two, you come into the training. There's no quiz. Consider me like the TV VCR. You know, there's no quiz. You get to enjoy yourself for that class that day. All I'm going to do is pay it forward and teach you soft skills that got me there. But these are the sort of things you just don't pick up a guitar in one day. I'm talking about 30 years worth of this knowledge that I'm trying to condense in two hours to show you the bouncy ball kindergarten way to do it. where I can show you, come and don't do the fish in a day and teaching you for life. https://youtu.be/dGgbmWYXEDk https://youtube.com/shorts/BXniUNkkN-I Richard Blank hired bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGjN5H4xPQ Paul Angelle, Inappropriate Growth Podcast, Richard Blank, Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing Call Centre, BPO, Nearshore Contact Center, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business, Podcast, Gamification,Leadership, Marketing, CX, Guest, Money, B2C education, BPO trainer,call centre, contact centre, contact center,trend, trending 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. CEO of Costa Rica's Call Center since February 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/ #PaulAngelle #InappropriateGrowthPodcast #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #trend #trending Limitations of AI in Empathy and Emotional Support And so my strongest argument against AI, they can carry 90% of everything. But when it comes to the empathy, right? When you're speaking to a doctor, an attorney, a best friend, you can't cry on an AI shoulder. And an AI can't tell you that they understand where you're coming from if your puppy runs away. So that sort of authenticity will never, never hit. You can make my burger faster. You can make it easier. Bing, bang, boomages. But that 10 minutes that I really needed a real individual where I'm stripped bare emotionally, I need to speak to Paul. I'm going to press zero because I want to speak to my friend who earned my business. The Power of Authentic Communication Over AI And most people today are doing omnichannel non-voice with texting and emails while you are still doing a painting. Not a print. Oh, what a beautiful speech to do. It has more value. You can really get the response of the people and there's no misinterpretation. And if you want to get business-like, you can upsell, you can referral, right? You can get that exit interview. You're creating a relationship. It's not an AI. You're really lessening the power of the contact by doing that. It's so informal. But then when you talk about the thesaurus and you give them certain words that will assist them, like removing help and using words like, you know, assist God and lend a hand, I'm allowing them the chance to choose their own adventure of more strategic and diplomatic vocabulary. Intense Telemarketing School Well, you've earned a reputation, right? With this training and teaching it as basically a school for telemarketing, right? Is that fair? Yes, but some people say that my training may be too intense from time to time. But as Blake said, and Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, if you can't take me, how are you gonna take being on a sit? I'm not saying that, I look at it like this, I bend, but I don't break. And my rhetoric is really just practicing rebuttals with you. The Value of Office Camaraderie Because- Wear pants every single day. But it's the medium, my friend. It gave people a chance to meet individuals from other departments. Right. And to be able to compete with people, even myself, and have fun and let off steam. And so just because we're adults, we can't play and have recess. No way. Not in my center. I've seen both sides of the, you know, because COVID COVID changed the dynamic. I mean, you can have a conversation on Zoom or on FaceTime or on a telephone or via text, but if you need a person, they're just not there. And the playing, the interacting, the camaraderie is not just the work. Empathy and Active Listening in Client Interaction Do you remember the song help from my friends that the Beatles wrote? Yes. Joe Cocker sang it at Woodstock is a little bit different than John Lennon. And so it's the same message, different delivery. And so it's funny you mentioned law firms, perfect example. Wow, you hit that on the head. I work with a client That is we do intake coordination for disability and wrongful termination. And so, yes, there are 10 questions we must ask to qualify. And these are tough, tough questions. But the islands, the bridging, the anchoring that we do is the empathy, number one. And secondly, repeating what you said to ensure you're not repeating it again. that I understand it, tied downing it by saying, yes, Paul, that does make sense, right? And then we move on. And so I can't do 45 minute calls, repeat three times. We can do a good 15 minute call where we just slice and dice, let them vent, repeat the vent, put the bed, Next question, we rake. And so yes, we are capable of doing that. And then I had a very, very difficult, it was a class action lawsuit. And we had to go through like 40 pages with people. And it was in regards to like an antipsychotic medication. Evolution and Enduring Human Elements of Call Centers And I'm curious, you know, the call center industry, it's hard for me. When people say the early 2000s, I think that, you know, was very recently, but I'm forced to realize that that was over 20 years ago. But yeah. A lot has changed in 20 years in that space. What are the most significant changes you've witnessed and how have you had to adapt? Would you say? Work from home definitely made a difference. It kind of ruined the synergy of what you have on site, especially since I have a great arcade with pinball machines and Pac-Man. Additionally, you were mentioning styles of clothes. I'm okay with that. You wanna go back a thousand years on how people used to dress? Fine, even go back to the togas. But guess what was the same? Technology changed in clothing and fashion and architecture changed. What was the same? A hug, a smile, right? Touching haptics, spacing, giving a food.