Embracing Aging and Language Learning Struggles.

Mitzi Ocasio Let's Think About "Soft Speaking Skills." LTA Podcast Special Guest Richard Blank Mitzi Let’s Think About It. Our podcast is a treasure trove of topics that matter to you. We feature a wide variety of subjects; each explored in depth with the help of guests from all over the world, each with their unique backgrounds and perspectives. Join us as we think together, exploring topics in ways you may not have considered before. Our podcast is an interactive journey of discovery, and we invite you to be a part of it. Check out Mitzithinkinc.com for more topics to ponder!Let's Just "Think About It!" This is a safe place to think about topics that you may believe are essential. I have a variety of topics and guests who bring a perspective that I know will have you pondering what matters to you. Richard shares his love of language and how he has perfected the soft-spoken skills I know so many are learning to obtain. He makes great points about how someone can develop this skill and how he dived into the Spanish language. This conversation is sure to leave you feeling enlightened and inspired. Mitzi Let's Think About It. This is where we explore the what-ifs in life. We examine the possibility of shifting our perspective to evolve in areas of ourselves that cause a ripple effect in one's life, WIth guest from all over the world and all walks of life sharing their testimonies and perspectives into great topics that will keep us all thinking. Embracing Aging and Language Learning Struggles So who's to say you're going to croak in 48 years already? Just because you're bald don't mean nothing. Just because you got great just shows you are wiser. That's all that it means. But somebody will still, your wife will still love you. She will still laugh at your jokes that you told 10 years ago. You know what I mean? It will be the same thing. The beauty of that is that because you're doing it with the right, you're putting your right foot forward every day. You're looking for joy. You're looking for goodness. You're looking to serve others. And the fact that you're linguistic and the fact that Spanish was your first language and you had to learn English, let's be honest, English is not easy. English makes no sense. But yet here we are making the sense of the English. The opposite, though, I grew up in northeast Philly. So Philly. So English was my first language. And then Spanish came later. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, thank you for correcting me. Either way, the fact that you had to learn Spanish is, is still hard. Well, Spanish is still hard to learn, because you there's still still rules, you know, they mean that you still have to apply, and you still have to remember because there's formal and informal and In the English American language, we're so informal all the time. We have to remind ourselves when we're in Spanish mode. Oh, to go. Oh, OK, this is formal and this is informal. So you have to check yourself continuously when you're having conversation. And I know what you mean. https://youtu.be/9jx4idY1IRU https://youtu.be/plLhdAH3RcA Richard Blank hired bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGjN5H4xPQ Mitzi Let’s Think About It, Mitzi Ocasio, 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 Welcome to "Mitzi, Let's think about it" Podcast What a perfect time and way to share my thoughts! That's why I made these audio podcasts available: they're a fun way to vocalize my thoughts. Stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday. I'll focus on topics that matter to me, to you, and to everyone with a mind that thinks. Creating a safe place to share our thoughts. Welcome to Mitzi Let's Think What is "Mitzi Let's Think" all about? Mitzi Let's Think is all about pondering some issues of life that make me think. This web page is about sharing my thoughts, findings, and opinions while having fun, learning, and being enlightened by a 360-degree perspective. If, by chance, it inspires you, Let's think about it. My name is Mitziel, but everyone calls me Mitzi. I consider myself to be an overthinker. I have always had to control my emotions at a very young age. Life hasn't always been easy for me, and I wanted to grow up sooner than other people. My hardship in life had made me constantly wonder "what if," which sparked my love for imagination and creativity. I love to write children's books because they get my mind outside of reality and into imagination. I also like music, reading, and, honestly, everything arts-related. I love thinking about everything I can and why such things are so. I have always been curious about why people feel a certain way and how easily certain things can become taboo. I guess that is why I started Mitzi Think Inc.: I love thinking about everything that can be thought of. I recently became a mother of two and am newly engaged. With this new chapter, I'm experiencing new emotions and taboos. Because of this, I knew I couldn't be the only one curious about our emotions and the taboos that are part of life. When life has so much to offer and so much to take from us. I knew this was the best way to share my thoughts and feelings. Please tune in to my blogs, podcasts, and books so we may think about such things together. 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. 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/ #MitziLetsThinkAboutIt #MitziOcasio #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #trend #trending #listennow #subscribe #podcastclip #podcastvideo #videopodcasting #podcastguest Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States Paying It Forward and Reflecting on Life at Midpoint And so I had to pay it forward some way. I just couldn't be selfish and earn money on my own. When I was doing well in business, I said, well, instead of being the top salesman, why don't I go from one and do it 100? I teach the people how to do it. And maybe I can make a dollar off each person compared to 100 for myself. And so I liked it better that way. I got more satisfaction. If I was going to earn the same dollar, I get more satisfaction knowing I brought 100 people with me and seeing them cracking codes and getting better because I'm 52 now. I'm the bald, gray, wise one by the fire. telling you're not that old oh my goodness why do people in their 50s think they're about to croak no you are only halfway there you still got so much life ahead of you so much 38 more years, I didn't say it's over but i'm letting you know i'm past halftime you know you're not even past you're not even past halftime yet not even past that there are people living past 100 years old past 100 years old Your energy, your spirit, all that you are will bypass the standard way of living just because of your mindset. Mitzi and Richard's Relatable Pet Peeves I got a couple different things. I hate having full pockets like in my jeans. Like if you give me a lot of change and I got keys in there and other things, I hate having full pockets. That bothers me so. I hate slow drivers that annoy me because they know I'm in a rush and they're going slow on purpose. And then all of a sudden I hate the make and mark of their car and the color. I get angry. um what else bothers me um people that may not be considerate of personal space or common sense i hate that but they just stop in the middle of nowhere they make camp they realize you got your card are you trying to get by and There are two ways you can do it. You can aggressively go at it or react to it a certain way. And I still think there's damage because you're wasting time and your patience. But I've seen that passive aggressive behavior actually reduces any sort of stress compared to saying, yo, what's going on? I start yelling at him. The Art of Speech in Business and Personal Connection I have a luxury trade. Yes, I'm in a call center. It's the medium. I can do well, and it's an industry and a business. But the basics of this, and I'm still kind of fighting against the AI, is the art of speech, the interpersonal electromagnetic energy transfer. The fact that we can retain a client, do an upsell, get a referral, or get an exit interview. And the synergy that people feel on the floor. What a linguistic, artistic environment, especially for English second language. What a dedication. And you're getting the return on that investment. And the beauty of that, Mitzi, and you know this, is when you're translating, you're even more focused than you are if it's in your native tongues. I mean, when you're used to it, it's easier. But you're really tapping into something that puts you in the now, right? That much more. And so hats off to anybody that speaks multiple languages because you want to talk about connections with people and soft skills. You meet someone that learns that second language. You both know what you put into it. And so the conversation starts so strong because you both did this to be able to relate to others. And so I have been embraced so. When I speak my Spanish with my Philly accent, I've done well in business and people really... You know, they gravitate towards me. Words of Wisdom: Self-Respect and Living Authentically Of course, I can't thank you enough for having me as a guest. But my parting words, what's assisted me in the long run is just not to be hard on myself. Okay, it's so important to look in my own eyes in the mirror. If you can't do that, we got some issues. And there needs to be some self respect. I like people that make their bed in the morning, if they're capable of hitting the gym, so they can release and retain. And if you can have a better diet, so we just don't do fun food all the time, we have food that can maintain and give you protein. You know, I always believe that regardless of any sort of outcome, at the end of the day, if you know you did things with honorable intentions and good faith, you should be able to live with yourself because a lot of people compare way too much and that's okay. But I don't know. I think you should be your own destiny, your own future, your own pace. Mastering Soft Speaking Skills and Conflict Management Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is your girl, Mitzi, and this is Mitzi. Let's think about it. Today we are thinking about soft speaking skills. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, goodness, if I can speak, I can get untangled and punctified and articulate my words, but yes. Soft speaking skills is what we are focusing on today with Richard, who's going to help us really think about this. So, Richard, thank you so much for coming on to my show. When you hear the words soft speaking skills, what does that make you think about? Well, first, Mitzi, I can't thank you enough for being a guest on your podcast. A lot of things to think about. First thing that comes to my mind, conflict management. Soft skills, diplomacy, and certain strategy to readjust tones and prolong conversations. And hopefully you can get something out of that interaction. That's usually the name of the game. Right, right. Soft tones. I always heard that you can say anything as long as you choose the word and the tone wisely. Is that true? 100% you're gauging on positive or negative reaction from somebody. And so even I myself will replace certain words, I'll take out help and put in assist guide and lend a hand. Never excuse me for my clarification. These are certain things, as I mentioned, readjusting tones and making it softer.

Mitzi Ocasio Let's Think About "Soft Speaking Skills." LTA Podcast Speci...

Mitzi Ocasio Let's Think About "Soft Speaking Skills." LTA Podcast Special Guest Richard Blank Mitzi Let’s Think About It. Our podcast is a treasure trove of topics that matter to you. We feature a wide variety of subjects; each explored in depth with the help of guests from all over the world, each with their unique backgrounds and perspectives. Join us as we think together, exploring topics in ways you may not have considered before. Our podcast is an interactive journey of discovery, and we invite you to be a part of it. Check out Mitzithinkinc.com for more topics to ponder!Let's Just "Think About It!" This is a safe place to think about topics that you may believe are essential. I have a variety of topics and guests who bring a perspective that I know will have you pondering what matters to you. Richard shares his love of language and how he has perfected the soft-spoken skills I know so many are learning to obtain. He makes great points about how someone can develop this skill and how he dived into the Spanish language. This conversation is sure to leave you feeling enlightened and inspired. Mitzi Let's Think About It. This is where we explore the what-ifs in life. We examine the possibility of shifting our perspective to evolve in areas of ourselves that cause a ripple effect in one's life, WIth guest from all over the world and all walks of life sharing their testimonies and perspectives into great topics that will keep us all thinking. https://youtu.be/9jx4idY1IRU Richard Blank hired bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGjN5H4xPQ Mitzi Let’s Think About It, Mitzi Ocasio, 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 Welcome to "Mitzi, Let's think about it" Podcast What a perfect time and way to share my thoughts! That's why I made these audio podcasts available: they're a fun way to vocalize my thoughts. Stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday. I'll focus on topics that matter to me, to you, and to everyone with a mind that thinks. Creating a safe place to share our thoughts. Welcome to Mitzi Let's Think What is "Mitzi Let's Think" all about? Mitzi Let's Think is all about pondering some issues of life that make me think. This web page is about sharing my thoughts, findings, and opinions while having fun, learning, and being enlightened by a 360-degree perspective. If, by chance, it inspires you, Let's think about it. My name is Mitziel, but everyone calls me Mitzi. I consider myself to be an overthinker. I have always had to control my emotions at a very young age. Life hasn't always been easy for me, and I wanted to grow up sooner than other people. My hardship in life had made me constantly wonder "what if," which sparked my love for imagination and creativity. I love to write children's books because they get my mind outside of reality and into imagination. I also like music, reading, and, honestly, everything arts-related. I love thinking about everything I can and why such things are so. I have always been curious about why people feel a certain way and how easily certain things can become taboo. I guess that is why I started Mitzi Think Inc.: I love thinking about everything that can be thought of. I recently became a mother of two and am newly engaged. With this new chapter, I'm experiencing new emotions and taboos. Because of this, I knew I couldn't be the only one curious about our emotions and the taboos that are part of life. When life has so much to offer and so much to take from us. I knew this was the best way to share my thoughts and feelings. Please tune in to my blogs, podcasts, and books so we may think about such things together. 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. 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/ #MitziLetsThinkAboutIt #MitziOcasio #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #trend #trending #listennow #subscribe #podcastclip #podcastvideo #videopodcasting #podcastguest Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States

Episode 79: Richard

In this episode, we talk to Richard Blank. He is empathetic, confident and has “old school grit”. Richard lives in Costa Rica. Richard tells us about getting off the comma created by familial and societal expectations. Growing up in a world where he was expected to follow a prescribed path, Richard describes feeling like he didn’t fit in and appearing as a failure to those around him. Allowing himself to “fail out” led him to find a new path and surprise himself with what he would find along the way. Paying attention to his instincts and the signs along the way, he ultimately found himself in another country, speaking a different language, and enjoying a success he never imagined. Tune in to hear what Richard means when he says “friends tell me they wish they had tried”.

Mastering the Art of Call Center Communication.

Let's Talk About It Podcast by Jeff Arnold. Customer Service with guest Richard Blank. Episode 33. Your host, Jeff Arnold, talks with the CEO, President, and Bilingual Telemarketing Trainer of Costa Rica's Call Center, Richard Blank. Richard shares his journey from studying at the University of Arizona to establishing his business. He covers the importance of interpersonal communication, the impact of AI, and ethical client selection. Richard emphasizes mentorship, personal growth, and the challenges of running a nearshore call center. His story highlights perseverance, adaptability, and the significance of ethical practices in achieving success. Episode 33 of Let's Talk About It: Conversations with Industry Shapers is live! Your host, Jeffery Arnold, interviews Richard Blank, CEO and President of Costa Rica's Call Center. From studying at the University of Arizona to building his own business, Richard shares his incredible journey. He dives into the importance of interpersonal communication, the impact of AI, and the ethics behind client selection. Richard also discusses mentorship, personal growth, and the unique challenges of running a nearshore call center. His story is one of perseverance, adaptability, and ethical success. Are you an industry shaper? Tune in now to learn from Richard's insights! Welcome to Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Industry Shapers means celebrating your unique contribution to bridging generational divides, mastering the art of the difficult conversations, and demystifying the complexities of the insurance world. We delve into your experiences to share invaluable insights with a community of listeners looking up to you. Your episode is not just a podcast: it's a legacy piece, inspiring current and future generations of leaders AI's Impact on the Call Center Industry And you still need that 10% human touch, approach, empathy, relationship to put that ball in the end zone. And so do I think my industry is going to change dramatically? I think 40% of the people are probably going to be replaced with very simple level one and level two AI that will perfect answering, you know, certain questions and doing QA and setting it up for you, teeing it up. But I tell you what, the specialists, the ones that really go above and beyond, the ones that can really be coached and trained, they'll be there. They'll be overseeing those bots that will bring in the leads for them to call to close or to be transferred to. And so, Look for it for appointment setting, lead generation, sales, customer support, back office support, non-voice support. Business Ethics and Market Selection What is the primary, like if you had to do the 80-20, is 80% of your business in the service industry or is it medical? Is it finance? What's kind of your target market for companies? How about this? I'm going to tell you five I don't do. Sportsbooks, casinos, stocks, pharmacies, or sweepstakes. I have nothing against it, but I'm in a very strict Catholic country. So I just want to make sure people can go home and tell their parents what they do for a living. I'm very selective of what comes in. I turn down more than I accept, not because it's gray area or shady, just because maybe their list isn't large enough. I can't work a whole month on 400 leads. If you have nobody in the office to pick up on a transfer, you're not following through. How are we going to do business? Cultural Connection Through Classic Movies I love classic movies. My favorite actor is Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney. I mean, Basil Rathbone, that's my mentor. He was doing stuff in the thirties and forties. So when the client called me and said, Richard, do you know anything about classic movies? Yes. Wiffle ball pitch. Here we go again. I started rattling off all my Alfred Hitchcocks and Steve McQueen's. And I mean, come on, man, I'm all over the place. And the guy's like, man, you know this better than I do. I go, could you imagine how I'm going to be pushing this and selling this? Yeah, absolutely. Getting excited over the spaghetti Westerners of Clint Eastwood. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. These were classics. But I tell you what. One of the greatest things people can do is to watch these movies because if you're speaking, let's say for an example, you're 20 years old now and you wanna call someone like myself a business owner, You should be watching Fast Times at Richmond High and Failure Spielers Day Off. Why? Because that's what I grew up on. That's right. So when you call me up, you go, come on, man. You know Mike DeMone's five-point plan. Or you mentioned Scotty Palmer from the movie Hard Bodies when he talked about the BBD, the bigger, better deal. If you say that to me on a phone call, I have my credit card at the ready. It's yours to lose. Gratitude and Paying It Forward I've been very, very fortunate to have made certain high-risk decisions, but they paid off. And so I have enough dinners to eat the rest of my life. And so if I've taken that worry out of the equation, what does have value? Where are your priorities? And I've mentioned it multiple times about paying it forward. You know why, Jeff, my boy? Because if the late principal Norman Schmidt, my dedicated Spanish teacher at Abington, didn't write me that recommendation, they would have not offset my bad grades to get me into Arizona. If I was not given by my cousin Joe this one in a million opportunity to move to Costa Rica, would have never met the girl of my dreams or had this opportunity. So if you think that I'm doing this all on my own, You're out of your mind. Mastering the Art of Call Center Communication And a call center is very interesting. You can learn retention, customer support, sales, onboarding, training, human resources, labor loss, search engine optimization. And so I said, this is very interesting. And as long as I was stimulated and I saw these English second language agents completely engaged on the phone, I don't know, maybe you get the butterflies or you say, wait a second, this looks like wiffle ball to me. I think I can handle this. And so when you get on a phone and you've never been trained before, guess what happens? You don't have bad habits. You could be molded accordingly. Thankfully, I had some excellent mentors that guided me into the structure of a phone call. I then took it into my own. But I saw the results and I understood the play. And I love the fact that strangers are friends you haven't met yet. And if you're eliminating three of your senses, your taste, touch and smell, and you're doing it in controlled environment consistently, your hearing and especially your image streaming, your visual, your metaphysics has to kick in. I mean, who does this? And so if I could master the sight unseen speech and really focus on phonetics, I might be able to crack some code, see some tell signs, and really perfect the beautiful sound of speech. https://youtu.be/DjFgaHg6Dz8 https://youtu.be/_eASw1hsdqE https://youtu.be/87KrlIGxdvg https://youtu.be/pysHb9dfKVw https://youtu.be/XtY9w-8WoP8 https://youtu.be/JBXcazq6Sj4 Richard Blank hired bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGjN5H4xPQ Jeff Arnold, Lets talk about it, 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 Meet Jeff Arnold I am originally from a small town in Western Kentucky (much smaller than you are thinking). My family was a combination of Preachers, Farmers, and Career Military with a sprinkling of some new kind of thing called Entrepreneurs. I am currently married to Laura Lee Arnold and ” YES, I Over Married ” as she is much smarter than I. She is a stay at home Mom (toughest job ever ) and we have four children ranging in age from 26 to 12.If you have children, perhaps yours also live to annoy each other. In this wonderfully captured moment of sibling bonding, we simply asked my son to watch his sister while we ran an errand. Not content to just have brother and sister bonding time, he chooses to educate her on the different snap chat filters. ( but not really ) My Career in the Insurance Joint Ventures vertical started completely by accident. After serving our wonderful nation in the United States Army, I pursued Drama & Acting and was returning from Hollywood ( North Hollywood NOT The Glamorous Part You Are Thinking About ) to visit my Mom in Tucson Arizona. I had been doing minor local tv stuff, stand up comedy in different clubs throughout the southwest and a few military base tours. I had zero gigs lined up and needed to ( eat, pay rent, put gas in car, Insert other necessity ). So, like any young man desperate for work, I responded to an ad for Insurance Salesman (It’s cliché I know) in beautiful Tucson Arizona. From day one of my new career, I was hooked. I could not read enough, learn enough or digest enough about this wonderfully exciting industry you casually refer to as Insurance, but I call giver of life, dream fulfiller and industry of all things sexy, exciting and just plain awesome.With the same missionary zeal of the preachers in my family and the military discipline from other parts of my family I began to tell everyone about Insurance. I also began to apply this crazy theory of Entrepreneurship into insurance and my first joint ventures were born. Ventures I have been fortunate to do joint ventures with Banks, Credit Unions, Mortgage Firms, Online Search Engines, Auto Dealerships, Privately Held Money Funds, Publicly Traded Aggregators, and some really neat Reinsurance stuff with billion dollar companies. 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. 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/ #letstalkaboutit #jeffarnold #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #trend #trending august 13th 2024

Gratitude and Paying It Forward.

Let's Talk About It Podcast by Jeff Arnold. Customer Service with guest Richard Blank. Episode 33. Your host, Jeff Arnold, talks with the CEO, President, and Bilingual Telemarketing Trainer of Costa Rica's Call Center, Richard Blank. Richard shares his journey from studying at the University of Arizona to establishing his business. He covers the importance of interpersonal communication, the impact of AI, and ethical client selection. Richard emphasizes mentorship, personal growth, and the challenges of running a nearshore call center. His story highlights perseverance, adaptability, and the significance of ethical practices in achieving success. Episode 33 of Let's Talk About It: Conversations with Industry Shapers is live! Your host, Jeffery Arnold, interviews Richard Blank, CEO and President of Costa Rica's Call Center. From studying at the University of Arizona to building his own business, Richard shares his incredible journey. He dives into the importance of interpersonal communication, the impact of AI, and the ethics behind client selection. Richard also discusses mentorship, personal growth, and the unique challenges of running a nearshore call center. His story is one of perseverance, adaptability, and ethical success. Are you an industry shaper? Tune in now to learn from Richard's insights! Welcome to Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Industry Shapers means celebrating your unique contribution to bridging generational divides, mastering the art of the difficult conversations, and demystifying the complexities of the insurance world. We delve into your experiences to share invaluable insights with a community of listeners looking up to you. Your episode is not just a podcast: it's a legacy piece, inspiring current and future generations of leaders AI's Impact on the Call Center Industry And you still need that 10% human touch, approach, empathy, relationship to put that ball in the end zone. And so do I think my industry is going to change dramatically? I think 40% of the people are probably going to be replaced with very simple level one and level two AI that will perfect answering, you know, certain questions and doing QA and setting it up for you, teeing it up. But I tell you what, the specialists, the ones that really go above and beyond, the ones that can really be coached and trained, they'll be there. They'll be overseeing those bots that will bring in the leads for them to call to close or to be transferred to. And so, Look for it for appointment setting, lead generation, sales, customer support, back office support, non-voice support. Business Ethics and Market Selection What is the primary, like if you had to do the 80-20, is 80% of your business in the service industry or is it medical? Is it finance? What's kind of your target market for companies? How about this? I'm going to tell you five I don't do. Sportsbooks, casinos, stocks, pharmacies, or sweepstakes. I have nothing against it, but I'm in a very strict Catholic country. So I just want to make sure people can go home and tell their parents what they do for a living. I'm very selective of what comes in. I turn down more than I accept, not because it's gray area or shady, just because maybe their list isn't large enough. I can't work a whole month on 400 leads. If you have nobody in the office to pick up on a transfer, you're not following through. How are we going to do business? Cultural Connection Through Classic Movies I love classic movies. My favorite actor is Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney. I mean, Basil Rathbone, that's my mentor. He was doing stuff in the thirties and forties. So when the client called me and said, Richard, do you know anything about classic movies? Yes. Wiffle ball pitch. Here we go again. I started rattling off all my Alfred Hitchcocks and Steve McQueen's. And I mean, come on, man, I'm all over the place. And the guy's like, man, you know this better than I do. I go, could you imagine how I'm going to be pushing this and selling this? Yeah, absolutely. Getting excited over the spaghetti Westerners of Clint Eastwood. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. These were classics. But I tell you what. One of the greatest things people can do is to watch these movies because if you're speaking, let's say for an example, you're 20 years old now and you wanna call someone like myself a business owner, You should be watching Fast Times at Richmond High and Failure Spielers Day Off. Why? Because that's what I grew up on. That's right. So when you call me up, you go, come on, man. You know Mike DeMone's five-point plan. Or you mentioned Scotty Palmer from the movie Hard Bodies when he talked about the BBD, the bigger, better deal. If you say that to me on a phone call, I have my credit card at the ready. It's yours to lose. Gratitude and Paying It Forward I've been very, very fortunate to have made certain high-risk decisions, but they paid off. And so I have enough dinners to eat the rest of my life. And so if I've taken that worry out of the equation, what does have value? Where are your priorities? And I've mentioned it multiple times about paying it forward. You know why, Jeff, my boy? Because if the late principal Norman Schmidt, my dedicated Spanish teacher at Abington, didn't write me that recommendation, they would have not offset my bad grades to get me into Arizona. If I was not given by my cousin Joe this one in a million opportunity to move to Costa Rica, would have never met the girl of my dreams or had this opportunity. So if you think that I'm doing this all on my own, You're out of your mind. https://youtu.be/DjFgaHg6Dz8 https://youtu.be/_eASw1hsdqE https://youtu.be/87KrlIGxdvg https://youtu.be/pysHb9dfKVw https://youtu.be/XtY9w-8WoP8 Richard Blank hired bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGjN5H4xPQ Jeff Arnold, Lets talk about it, 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 Meet Jeff Arnold I am originally from a small town in Western Kentucky (much smaller than you are thinking). My family was a combination of Preachers, Farmers, and Career Military with a sprinkling of some new kind of thing called Entrepreneurs. I am currently married to Laura Lee Arnold and ” YES, I Over Married ” as she is much smarter than I. She is a stay at home Mom (toughest job ever ) and we have four children ranging in age from 26 to 12.If you have children, perhaps yours also live to annoy each other. In this wonderfully captured moment of sibling bonding, we simply asked my son to watch his sister while we ran an errand. Not content to just have brother and sister bonding time, he chooses to educate her on the different snap chat filters. ( but not really ) My Career in the Insurance Joint Ventures vertical started completely by accident. After serving our wonderful nation in the United States Army, I pursued Drama & Acting and was returning from Hollywood ( North Hollywood NOT The Glamorous Part You Are Thinking About ) to visit my Mom in Tucson Arizona. I had been doing minor local tv stuff, stand up comedy in different clubs throughout the southwest and a few military base tours. I had zero gigs lined up and needed to ( eat, pay rent, put gas in car, Insert other necessity ). So, like any young man desperate for work, I responded to an ad for Insurance Salesman (It’s cliché I know) in beautiful Tucson Arizona. From day one of my new career, I was hooked. I could not read enough, learn enough or digest enough about this wonderfully exciting industry you casually refer to as Insurance, but I call giver of life, dream fulfiller and industry of all things sexy, exciting and just plain awesome.With the same missionary zeal of the preachers in my family and the military discipline from other parts of my family I began to tell everyone about Insurance. I also began to apply this crazy theory of Entrepreneurship into insurance and my first joint ventures were born. Ventures I have been fortunate to do joint ventures with Banks, Credit Unions, Mortgage Firms, Online Search Engines, Auto Dealerships, Privately Held Money Funds, Publicly Traded Aggregators, and some really neat Reinsurance stuff with billion dollar companies. 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. 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/ #letstalkaboutit #jeffarnold #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #trend #trending august 13th 2024 Mastering the Art of Call Center Communication And a call center is very interesting. You can learn retention, customer support, sales, onboarding, training, human resources, labor loss, search engine optimization. And so I said, this is very interesting. And as long as I was stimulated and I saw these English second language agents completely engaged on the phone, I don't know, maybe you get the butterflies or you say, wait a second, this looks like wiffle ball to me. I think I can handle this. And so when you get on a phone and you've never been trained before, guess what happens? You don't have bad habits. You could be molded accordingly. Thankfully, I had some excellent mentors that guided me into the structure of a phone call. I then took it into my own. But I saw the results and I understood the play. And I love the fact that strangers are friends you haven't met yet. And if you're eliminating three of your senses, your taste, touch and smell, and you're doing it in controlled environment consistently, your hearing and especially your image streaming, your visual, your metaphysics has to kick in. I mean, who does this? And so if I could master the sight unseen speech and really focus on phonetics, I might be able to crack some code, see some tell signs, and really perfect the beautiful sound of speech.