The Erika and Abi Show. The importance of mindset with special guest Ric...

The Erika and Abi Show. The importance of mindset with special guest Richard Blank Explore the unseen paths to success with Erika & Abi. Our guests range from industry leaders, innovators, and artists each with a story that will inspire and inform. Subscribe to join our community of curious and passionate listeners. Erika: NYC Affordable Housing Director turned full-time land investor and entrepreneur. Her company, Gokce Capital, buys and sells land throughout the United States. Don't miss her insightful book, "Land Investing Mistakes," now on Amazon. Abi: Wall Street tech manager with a passion for helping people use technology to earn more and work less. How To Get People To Say Yes The episode is a detailed conversation featuring Richard, an expat entrepreneur who founded and grew a call center company in Costa Rica to over 150 employees. It covers several topics: Mindset and Soft Skills: Richard emphasizes the importance of mindset, likening it to "whistling while you work," enabling one to overcome challenges. He discusses how to develop and utilize soft skills effectively, such as active listening, empathetic communication, and positive reinforcement to manage and navigate difficult conversations and customer interactions. Moving to Costa Rica: Richard shares his initial reactions upon moving to Costa Rica, highlighting the family-oriented culture, the warmth of the people, and the beauty of the environment. He talks about the importance of integrating into the community and fostering a fun and supportive atmosphere at work. Entrepreneurship Journey: He delves into his journey of starting a call center in Costa Rica, from initially renting a station in a blended center to eventually owning a building. He shares insights on overcoming challenges, such as understanding local labor laws and maintaining ethical business practices. Employee Management and Retention: Richard details his approach to employee management and retention, focusing on empathy, dignity, and creating a positive, engaging work environment. He emphasizes the significance of selecting the right people for the job and cultivating a culture where employees feel valued and motivated. Sales and Communication Techniques: Throughout the conversation, Richard shares various sales and communication techniques, such as the "buffer boomerang" method, focusing on the importance of making a strong first impression, building rapport, and establishing a connection with clients and customers. He underscores the power of using one's name in conversation as a key to successful communication. Life and Business Philosophy: Richard's narrative is imbued with his life and business philosophy of paying it forward, believing in the principle of action and reaction, and the importance of small acts of kindness. He also touches on personal goals, like writing children's books and the simple joys of everyday life. Advice for Developing Communication Skills: He suggests watching certain TV shows from the past to improve speech and delivery, practicing dedicatedly, and being in the right frame of mind to effectively communicate and connect with others. This conversation offers valuable insights into the power of positive thinking, effective communication, the importance of community and culture in business, and the journey of entrepreneurship in a foreign country. Transcript

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. 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/ #TheErikaandAbiShow #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO https://youtu.be/FDq5rg4J2S8 Soft Skills: More Than Just for Call Centers And how do you, how do you develop this skillset? If you're not, say you're not someone who's going to make their career working at a call center or starting a call center, but you are someone that needs to, as you mentioned earlier, there are a lot of frontline workers who really need to be able to communicate with people who are often not in a good state of mind, doctors, anyone in the medical field. How do you learn these skills if you're not going to get the practice of 100 calls a day working with people? Oh, you watch this podcast. Well, maybe these are the sort of soft skills that can save a marriage or a Thanksgiving dinner. The Power of Active Listening and Emotional Intelligence EQ. Yeah. Like meditation, you need to be in the right frame of mind and you can't play happy if you're sad. You can try. But no, if you do this after three weeks, it becomes habit. And you know what's the beautiful part about this? And a lot of it is just active listening. You can still do your job. You can still type and convert your calls and ask questions. But it's almost like that guy that juggles that can bite the apple as well. There's still room in the cart to do something, or you can upgrade it a little bit. You know, you just don't ask a question. You say the person's name, or as I did in the beginning, the company name spike. And it's so nice to hear you two react when I say the name of your podcast. I know that makes you smile. Overcoming Accent Bias in Calls If someone from Costa Rica is making that call, who is, like, born there, they would have an accent, right? So when they call Erica, wouldn't Erica know, like, Her first reaction will be, oh, I know it's a sales call because it's not even someone from the US. So don't they have to work even harder? Your accent is in the United States as much as a Latino one or an Asian one or anyone. The United States is a melting pot. So for me today, once again, anyone could be anywhere. And the Latino market's growing. But how about this, my good friend? You got a cool accent. Well, that's the reason why I don't make outbound phone calls. Spotting and Addressing Burnout in the Workplace And so that's my main thing is I have to put some water on their face, give them some coffee, or just a timeout to play some Pac-Man and pinball just to readjust themselves. But how do you even know that they're in a bad state today? We have a quality control department. So immediately you can see talk time. I mean, once again, if someone is rushing a call, they're hanging up, or if they're going too long, they're just not listening. And you have people that are either around them or the monitors that will let you know that something is off. If it's a brand new agent, I don't know them. But if it's someone that's been with me and I have a luxury of a track record, I can easily compare it to other times and other metrics. But we have preventative measures. We do touch base with everybody in the mornings and just see how they're doing that day and what's happening. Willing to Die for a Passion Remember we spoke about dying, you know, falling on swords and dying on hills. Listen, this is the one with my wife that she knows I'm willing to die on. Of course. I love my pinball machines, especially the older ones, the marquees and the play fields, the bells and the lights. It's just incredible for me, the restoration. Stress Reduction Techniques and Industry Expectations And so really reducing some of that stress with cognitive skills is what I like. But it's practice. You know, we have scripts with rebuttals. Send me information. Why should I do business with you? As you say, I'm busy going into a meeting, things like that. And so we'll have things written down. And when they practice it, what they can do is, as I was trying to do, is anchor by using names. I mean, I could say, I know you're busy, I'll send you information, but I'm going to say Erica, just for a second, just to calm everyone down and then make my point. As I say, there can be stability when there's unstable ground. You just got to find how to readjust yourself. Because things are moving so fast. But I tell you what, I mean, if this is the sort of thing that beats you up so bad, you shouldn't be in this industry. It's not for the faint of heart. The Lasting Impact of Mentorship And if I can get that out of somebody and be that proper mentor to them, they're good for the rest of their life. And so that's what I try to do to keep the art of speech and to make it fresh. If not, you're just going to see this as a grind, a forced march, and you just can't wait to bounce this job and go to the next one that might pay an extra five bucks. And it's an interesting industry, my friends. Pursue Your Passion And if great-grandpa didn't come, we wouldn't be here today. So everyone needs to calm down a little bit. The worst thing you could ever do, because my intentions are honorable, is take the spark out of somebody. You see that I have invested my life in Spanish. I do the dedicated practice. I do above and beyond what school asked me to do. And you have to give me a shot at it. You got to see what I can do. Little did I know... that I was not a business major. So what's the second challenge? Being a CEO of a company.

The Art of Selling: Beyond Tactics to Understanding

Englix Broadcast with writer Saurav Bhattacharjee. A Language strategy in sales by Richard Blank. Interviews & Case Studies on : Mythology, True Crime, Organized Crime, Pop Culture (Dark) , Internet Culture, Self Improvement. As a Senior Engineer in Advanced Development Technology Dry Etch at Micron Technology, Saurav Bhattacharjee is involved in developing cutting-edge solutions for semiconductor fabrication. Saurav Bhattacharjee has over two years of high volume semiconductor manufacturing experience in facilities management as well, working at Micron's state-of-the-art Fab 16 in Taichung, Taiwan. Saurav Bhattacharjee is a passionate about creating a positive impact on the environment and society through my work. He has been a serial innovator in the production of sustainable aviation fuel and try to incorporate sustainable development as a key performance indicator in my work. Also, a co-lead Mosaic Taiwan, an employee resource group that promotes diversity, equality, and inclusion at Micron. He is fluent in English and Mandarin, and enjoys collaborating with colleagues from different backgrounds and cultures. An active journalist and an English coach. Working on English fluency, literature and writing 10X Doesn't Work NO More! Here It From a Seasoned Vet . Building a Call Center: Strategies and Insights Best thing is to tell my story. I didn't want to overextend myself. So what I did was I rented a turnkey station at a blended center. Yeah, sure, you're paying top dollar, but it allows you to scale and decrease accordingly. And so they pay for the IT, the water, the coffee, the security. Once again, that's how you can scale. And then secondly, in regards to your clients, In order for me to close most of my deals, I needed to be well-versed in what I was offering. And probably one of the greatest traits that I had was no surprises. It's not being a negative Nancy or Debbie Downer or even a devil's advocate. I got to let you know from time to time, if Billy doesn't show up on Wednesday, what do we do? You know, if you run out of leads, what do we do? You know, these are certain things that I would do preventative measures. Well, there's preventative measures. I would let them know that we're down to one week's worth to the client to be able to get them to order new ones. Or even in the beginning of the list, I can let them know how good the list is to see if it's worth making these phone calls and to continue investing in it. And so... These are slicing and dicing things that people aren't aware of. They just think this stuff is like Hollywood. As I mentioned, you give a script, you give a list, God makes you a million dollars. And so I have to make sure, are we using our predictive dialer? Is it smart dialing? Is it manual dialing? Is it our CRM? Is it your CRM? Who does the QA? Who does the reporting? How long's the talk time? How long's the wrap-up time? You know, there's a sort of little thing, email templates, voicemails. And so there's a lot of preparation prior. It's not difficult. Carving Your Own Path: Embracing Uniqueness and Overcoming Comparison Of course, but no two snowflakes are alike, nor thumbprints. And so for you to get a blueprint to be a CEO, or you, my good friend, is a well-respected journalist, yeah, you can follow in the steps of people that came before you and mentors, but there's always a 10% zig and a zag, the thing that metaphysics throws at you that you're not sure how to handle. And so a lot of the time, you either believe in others or believe in yourself. And if you prepare things and have checkpoints in life, then maybe you realize you're not too far away from your path. And for me, at a very, very early age, I saw a lot of positive looks and energies to what I was doing. I wasn't hurting anyone. I wasn't breaking windows. It was different from all of my friends because most people weren't doing it. But what are the tough parts of this? It's maturity, it's impulse control, it's handling your finances. And if you're comparing yourself to a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, or just anybody that has done something that you think is superior to you, well, mind you this, there could be only one king, but there's so many princes in this world. If you can settle with at least elevating yourself, But how can you compare yourself to others who even knows what was behind their kitchen door and what sort of assistance they got? You don't know the whole story A to B. Creating a Positive Company Culture And that's what separates me from Jeff Bezos and myself, who's got tens of thousands of agents and a huge presence here. I try to know everyone's name and play pinball with them and invest in their careers. And so by filtering accordingly, because I'm not hiring thousands, I'm about 150, I can be very selective. And doing so, then I created a nice little circle of happiness here. And that's how you build a business, my friend, of non-backstabbers and bad people. You're selective and you see the depth and you make sure that you can make yourself vulnerable with them to see how strong and secure they are. And if you have that, then you can rely on them during the tough times and build a business. Facing Competition: Empowering Employees in the Call Center Industry Well, you got to be careful, though, because people do take notes on the Internet. And your competitors are at this moment either crushing your business or watching this and taking notes. So let's start with competitors. Do you love them? Do you hate them? What's going on? Well, I don't fear them. That's just a morbid anticipation. I know that if I prepare for it and I'm stable and balanced, I'm going to give my best shot. And so the fact that I've almost completed 16 years in this exceptionally competitive industry, I think the market speaks. And so you need to treat your people well in the call center industry. They're not expendable. Give them their dignity. And as long as you invest in them and you give them positive reinforcement, there's no reason why they wouldn't stay with you. Leadership and Building Company Culture And so these are the sort of things that your individuals who have either worked at call centers see levels only just balancing the books and doing contracts and just making sure you're not breaking the law. But I skipped steps. I went from working at my friend's call center to owning a call center. So my... I was preserved. I never got tainted through those supervisor manager levels. And so I really saw it from the inside out. I saw 90% of it and I saw what needed to be done because I could do it undercover. And then I needed specialists, CTOs, human resources, accountants, attorneys, supervisors. And so my trunk of the tree needed branches and roots to expand. So as long as you have people with confidence, And good credentials, those are the individuals that you would bring on board to offset any sort of department that you don't have expertise in or you have the time to invest in. And so, you know, as I mentioned, I'm a guest here. And so I preferred besides super, you know, CTO IT specialist, I prefer to promote from within. It's very easy to mold somebody like a squire to a knight. And also they don't have bad habits. And the greatest thing I have is my company culture. As somebody really wants to be here, I'd love to invest in them compared to a hotshot that comes in, messes things up and jumps out and becomes a cancer. And so there's things that outside affect the agents here. I make sure when parents show up, I talk about them outside. I'm always dressed accordingly. These are the little things you and I might not think about, but go a long way when they go home. and how proud their mother is of you, because their boss said something nice. Persistence Pays Off: The Journey to This Interview Oh, my good friend. I see myself as an educator. Your audience has no idea the past 12 months it took me to get on this show. All the emails back and forth and you and I just still being interested in one another. And I did pass your filter. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. To your credit, I think you have your way around this. I mean, that's a great sales prowess. That's just... Because a lot of people would have just like, I work with PR folks all the time. And I get hundreds of HARO requests, hundreds of PR agencies reaching me. They reach to me one time and they forget about it. And then they reach out to me on another topic. But you stayed your course. I don't know how did you do it because usually people forget about it. So because we anchored, we had something in common. It was enough of a spark to last 12 months. Praise for Leadership and Where to Follow This has been an interesting one. I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Richard. I think your cadence, your way of presenting yourself, your persistence, it transcends sales. It's way better. I think you cannot be labeled as just a salesman or just a business owner. I think you're a good leader. Yeah. And within that particular bubble that you said, that's a good strategy for you because you ought to influence more people effectively. And they do it better when they stay in touch with you closely. I think you have a fantastic approach. And all of the viewers, please send Mr. Richard a little love. Where can they find you? Where can they follow you for more tips, tricks, content? Thank you so much for asking. I have a very large Facebook fan page, about 120,000 local Costa Rican Ticos. It's under Costa Rica's call center. So my colleagues... My respected colleagues out there in India, please join our site and make some friends. The Art of Selling: Beyond Tactics to Understanding I don't know if AI can do this, but let's take this interview to Hollywood. Richard, sell me this pen. Hey, write my name down. You know, I mean, I asked Charles the same question. He said, I'm not, I don't care about this pen. There was a printer next to me. He said, let's talk about that printer, which was a smart answer. Is there any answer around this? You know, Belfort says it's about probing. You got to ask more questions. Okay. Are you in this industry? Right? So, Is there a way around it or is it just a tactic? No, it's preparation. It's due diligence. It's like an exam that you took in school. If you understand the company and their needs, then the rest is just bingo balls and luck because of their pricing and other people that have to make final decisions. But as I say before, as long as you realize that somebody does work have need for something and you start eliminating the fat, it's much easier to buy lists a certain way, adjust a script a certain way, shave time a certain way so you can hunt properly and find the right places to go. https://youtu.be/sc2n6gMZCrI https://youtu.be/ke54n7_Iljw https://youtu.be/SGoSByNQfqg https://youtu.be/ETPoUFyDMY4 https://youtu.be/rlQkgvVcgiw https://youtu.be/-gjkCDmJi3g https://youtu.be/iqaCY8sqLqo https://youtu.be/-AHPQXWleaA https://youtu.be/UqxvwW_6jvg

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. 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/ #SauravBhattacharjee #EnglixBroadcast #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #BusinessConfidentialNow

Praise for Leadership and Where to Follow

Englix Broadcast with writer Saurav Bhattacharjee. A Language strategy in sales by Richard Blank. Interviews & Case Studies on : Mythology, True Crime, Organized Crime, Pop Culture (Dark) , Internet Culture, Self Improvement. As a Senior Engineer in Advanced Development Technology Dry Etch at Micron Technology, Saurav Bhattacharjee is involved in developing cutting-edge solutions for semiconductor fabrication. Saurav Bhattacharjee has over two years of high volume semiconductor manufacturing experience in facilities management as well, working at Micron's state-of-the-art Fab 16 in Taichung, Taiwan. Saurav Bhattacharjee is a passionate about creating a positive impact on the environment and society through my work. He has been a serial innovator in the production of sustainable aviation fuel and try to incorporate sustainable development as a key performance indicator in my work. Also, a co-lead Mosaic Taiwan, an employee resource group that promotes diversity, equality, and inclusion at Micron. He is fluent in English and Mandarin, and enjoys collaborating with colleagues from different backgrounds and cultures. An active journalist and an English coach. Working on English fluency, literature and writing 10X Doesn't Work NO More! Here It From a Seasoned Vet . Building a Call Center: Strategies and Insights Best thing is to tell my story. I didn't want to overextend myself. So what I did was I rented a turnkey station at a blended center. Yeah, sure, you're paying top dollar, but it allows you to scale and decrease accordingly. And so they pay for the IT, the water, the coffee, the security. Once again, that's how you can scale. And then secondly, in regards to your clients, In order for me to close most of my deals, I needed to be well-versed in what I was offering. And probably one of the greatest traits that I had was no surprises. It's not being a negative Nancy or Debbie Downer or even a devil's advocate. I got to let you know from time to time, if Billy doesn't show up on Wednesday, what do we do? You know, if you run out of leads, what do we do? You know, these are certain things that I would do preventative measures. Well, there's preventative measures. I would let them know that we're down to one week's worth to the client to be able to get them to order new ones. Or even in the beginning of the list, I can let them know how good the list is to see if it's worth making these phone calls and to continue investing in it. And so... These are slicing and dicing things that people aren't aware of. They just think this stuff is like Hollywood. As I mentioned, you give a script, you give a list, God makes you a million dollars. And so I have to make sure, are we using our predictive dialer? Is it smart dialing? Is it manual dialing? Is it our CRM? Is it your CRM? Who does the QA? Who does the reporting? How long's the talk time? How long's the wrap-up time? You know, there's a sort of little thing, email templates, voicemails. And so there's a lot of preparation prior. It's not difficult. Carving Your Own Path: Embracing Uniqueness and Overcoming Comparison Of course, but no two snowflakes are alike, nor thumbprints. And so for you to get a blueprint to be a CEO, or you, my good friend, is a well-respected journalist, yeah, you can follow in the steps of people that came before you and mentors, but there's always a 10% zig and a zag, the thing that metaphysics throws at you that you're not sure how to handle. And so a lot of the time, you either believe in others or believe in yourself. And if you prepare things and have checkpoints in life, then maybe you realize you're not too far away from your path. And for me, at a very, very early age, I saw a lot of positive looks and energies to what I was doing. I wasn't hurting anyone. I wasn't breaking windows. It was different from all of my friends because most people weren't doing it. But what are the tough parts of this? It's maturity, it's impulse control, it's handling your finances. And if you're comparing yourself to a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, or just anybody that has done something that you think is superior to you, well, mind you this, there could be only one king, but there's so many princes in this world. If you can settle with at least elevating yourself, But how can you compare yourself to others who even knows what was behind their kitchen door and what sort of assistance they got? You don't know the whole story A to B. Creating a Positive Company Culture And that's what separates me from Jeff Bezos and myself, who's got tens of thousands of agents and a huge presence here. I try to know everyone's name and play pinball with them and invest in their careers. And so by filtering accordingly, because I'm not hiring thousands, I'm about 150, I can be very selective. And doing so, then I created a nice little circle of happiness here. And that's how you build a business, my friend, of non-backstabbers and bad people. You're selective and you see the depth and you make sure that you can make yourself vulnerable with them to see how strong and secure they are. And if you have that, then you can rely on them during the tough times and build a business. Facing Competition: Empowering Employees in the Call Center Industry Well, you got to be careful, though, because people do take notes on the Internet. And your competitors are at this moment either crushing your business or watching this and taking notes. So let's start with competitors. Do you love them? Do you hate them? What's going on? Well, I don't fear them. That's just a morbid anticipation. I know that if I prepare for it and I'm stable and balanced, I'm going to give my best shot. And so the fact that I've almost completed 16 years in this exceptionally competitive industry, I think the market speaks. And so you need to treat your people well in the call center industry. They're not expendable. Give them their dignity. And as long as you invest in them and you give them positive reinforcement, there's no reason why they wouldn't stay with you. Leadership and Building Company Culture And so these are the sort of things that your individuals who have either worked at call centers see levels only just balancing the books and doing contracts and just making sure you're not breaking the law. But I skipped steps. I went from working at my friend's call center to owning a call center. So my... I was preserved. I never got tainted through those supervisor manager levels. And so I really saw it from the inside out. I saw 90% of it and I saw what needed to be done because I could do it undercover. And then I needed specialists, CTOs, human resources, accountants, attorneys, supervisors. And so my trunk of the tree needed branches and roots to expand. So as long as you have people with confidence, And good credentials, those are the individuals that you would bring on board to offset any sort of department that you don't have expertise in or you have the time to invest in. And so, you know, as I mentioned, I'm a guest here. And so I preferred besides super, you know, CTO IT specialist, I prefer to promote from within. It's very easy to mold somebody like a squire to a knight. And also they don't have bad habits. And the greatest thing I have is my company culture. As somebody really wants to be here, I'd love to invest in them compared to a hotshot that comes in, messes things up and jumps out and becomes a cancer. And so there's things that outside affect the agents here. I make sure when parents show up, I talk about them outside. I'm always dressed accordingly. These are the little things you and I might not think about, but go a long way when they go home. and how proud their mother is of you, because their boss said something nice. Persistence Pays Off: The Journey to This Interview Oh, my good friend. I see myself as an educator. Your audience has no idea the past 12 months it took me to get on this show. All the emails back and forth and you and I just still being interested in one another. And I did pass your filter. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. To your credit, I think you have your way around this. I mean, that's a great sales prowess. That's just... Because a lot of people would have just like, I work with PR folks all the time. And I get hundreds of HARO requests, hundreds of PR agencies reaching me. They reach to me one time and they forget about it. And then they reach out to me on another topic. But you stayed your course. I don't know how did you do it because usually people forget about it. So because we anchored, we had something in common. It was enough of a spark to last 12 months. Praise for Leadership and Where to Follow This has been an interesting one. I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Richard. I think your cadence, your way of presenting yourself, your persistence, it transcends sales. It's way better. I think you cannot be labeled as just a salesman or just a business owner. I think you're a good leader. Yeah. And within that particular bubble that you said, that's a good strategy for you because you ought to influence more people effectively. And they do it better when they stay in touch with you closely. I think you have a fantastic approach. And all of the viewers, please send Mr. Richard a little love. Where can they find you? Where can they follow you for more tips, tricks, content? Thank you so much for asking. I have a very large Facebook fan page, about 120,000 local Costa Rican Ticos. It's under Costa Rica's call center. So my colleagues... My respected colleagues out there in India, please join our site and make some friends. https://youtu.be/sc2n6gMZCrI https://youtu.be/ke54n7_Iljw https://youtu.be/SGoSByNQfqg https://youtu.be/ETPoUFyDMY4 https://youtu.be/rlQkgvVcgiw https://youtu.be/-gjkCDmJi3g https://youtu.be/iqaCY8sqLqo https://youtu.be/-AHPQXWleaA

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. 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/ #SauravBhattacharjee #EnglixBroadcast #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #BusinessConfidentialNow The Art of Selling: Beyond Tactics to Understanding I don't know if AI can do this, but let's take this interview to Hollywood. Richard, sell me this pen. Hey, write my name down. You know, I mean, I asked Charles the same question. He said, I'm not, I don't care about this pen. There was a printer next to me. He said, let's talk about that printer, which was a smart answer. Is there any answer around this? You know, Belfort says it's about probing. You got to ask more questions. Okay. Are you in this industry? Right? So, Is there a way around it or is it just a tactic? No, it's preparation. It's due diligence. It's like an exam that you took in school. If you understand the company and their needs, then the rest is just bingo balls and luck because of their pricing and other people that have to make final decisions. But as I say before, as long as you realize that somebody does work have need for something and you start eliminating the fat, it's much easier to buy lists a certain way, adjust a script a certain way, shave time a certain way so you can hunt properly and find the right places to go.