Shark Bite Biz, hosted by David Strausser, started as a show on how to navigate to your business during the Covid Pandemic and now focusing on "the 3 G's": personal growth, professional growth, and business growth. This show has hosted many CEO's, VP's, Managers, and Small Business Owners all giving their insight as a subject matter expert in their field. The show has had legendary music producer Jack Douglas, Soledad O'Brien, film director James Cullen Bressack, Recruiter.com and CNBC Contributor Evan Sohn and many more. Strausser is a member of the Forbes Business Development Council.Are call centers alive or dead after covid with work-from-home going strong. Today's interview may surprise you as Shark Bite Biz's David Strausser chats with Richard Blank of Costa Rica's Call Center. Episode #213 Modern Call Centers.https://youtu.be/Bki9lRhp8VEShark Bite Biz is a podcast dedicated to helping businesses achieve growth in the roaring 20's. In a world full of sharks, learn how to bite first!This vodcast focuses on personal, professional, & business growth during the on-going global pandemic. We focus on bringing some of the top experts and small business owners to the show to tell their stories about how they broke through barriers preventing growth and got their business to the next level.More about the Host: David Strausser is an expert at enabling small businesses to drive growth via the promise of technology. David empowers his customers to digitally transform by automating business processes and maximizing business intelligence. David writes on Forbes as a member of the Forbes Business Development Council and a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. You can find David's full bio here: https://davidstrausser.com & https://sharkbitebiz.com.David was born and raised in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the heart of coal country. At a young age David realized that the small city life wasn’t for him. He yearned for something larger and 6 weeks after the September 11th attacks, while barely 18, he decided to pack up and move to a new life. “Viva la Mexico”. David moved to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Why? Simple. He was able to live in Mexico and then work in San Diego, right across the U.S. / Mexico International Border Crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Since his first job at the age of 14, David has always been enthusiastic about sales. He had worked at places like Foot Locker at the age of 15 and then Sears while a young adult. Just like he wanted more while living in Pottsville, he also felt that the retail life was not for him. Yes, he could do it and excelled at it, often being the top sales representative in his store, but he felt he could achieve bigger and better things.During the economic depression of 2008 – 2010, David found himself searching for answers. He moved to Peru for about a year, where he met his wife, Raquel Strausser. From there David immigrated Raquel to Mexico and they re-established themselves in the Baja Cali Megaregion. Employment was tough and while David could ultimately earn a living that was good enough for living in Mexico, their ultimate goal was to move to San Diego. The current wage environment at that time did not support him being able to make such a move. That’s when David realized that after 10 years of living in Mexico at that point that he had some unique skills. Not only was David fluent in Spanish and had a Mexican legal status as a Residente Permanente (Mexican Legal Permanent Resident), but he had many contacts in business throughout Mexico, Peru, and the rest of Latin America. Instead of taking a position where he would be grossly underpaid for his skillset out of necessity, David went another route. He started the business “Strausser Consulting Services” and began independent consulting. The goal of the company was to assist American companies trying to find growth throughout Latin America with their products and technologies. The start though wasn’t that simple. The very first contract David got was with a Sprint retailer who saw his vast retail experience and hired him as an independent consultant to help turn around 7 of their newly acquired stores in San Diego County. It was a six-month contract but it gave David something solid to run off of if he was successful.Success happened and from there David acquired separate large contracts over a 6 year period. While many of the projects were fixed-term and project based, some of the contracts were long-term. Some of these contracts were with companies like P.I.N.T., Inc., doing business development to help them break into the Mexican market, Kodenshi AUK, a Japanese and Korean semiconductor manufacturer looking to break into Latin America, TAAG Industries, BorderTraffic / LaLineaEnVivo, and BajaBound. This all was the passion of what David does best, help small to medium size business grow. He was creating new channels and opportunities for these businesses that they did not know how to achieve on their own.Interestingly enough, because of the unique border situation with the Baja-Cali megaregion of Tijuana and San Diego David was specializing at one point not just in technology, but border crossing technology. This lead to David developing extensive relationships with the Mexican Government, which led to him being contracted as the “Consejero Binacional” (Binational Advisor) to the Secretary of Tourism for Baja, California, Mexico where he worked in making lives easier for American Tourists while visiting Baja, Mexico with the promise of technology. David assisted trying to modernize the Tourist Visa process online for Americans visiting Mexico and even helped transform the fishing permit license so that Americans can obtain the licenses digitally online. All impressive feats at the time with a government that is notoriously slow in adopting new technology. In fact, David is one of the few non-Latino American citizens with a written letter of recommendation from the Mexican Government.​During that time also, David realized that there was a huge education gap in Mexico. Latinas, Mexican women specifically, were behind in their knowledge of how technology works. Although with the younger generation it was getting better, at that time if you were 25 or older and female, your understanding of basic technology was little to none. That’s when David and his wife Raquel created a tech blog called TechChicas that was dedicated to helping Latinas around the world understand basic technology that they could access to make their lives easier. The site was a success winning multiple awards including one from Penn State University. That service was sold in 2015 when David took another turn in his career. As successful as he was, the consulting world was a tiring one for David. Not only was he working 40 to 50 hours a week for clients, but he was also working an addition 20+ hours a week just trying to find new projects and bidding on new work. It was relentless and gave David no work / life balance.After 6 long years of sacrificing all his time working to give his family the life he felt they deserved, David finally got offered a position that would give him what he was searching for. David and his family moved to Los Angeles in December of 2015 to start with Vision33, Inc.​This brings a brand new chapter. Finally, David was able to use his networking skills, business development skills, sales and marketing strategies for one dedicated company. David was new to the ERP (enterprise resource planning) business but he had a thorough understanding of technology due to his degree from Penn State University in Information Sciences & Technologies with a focus on Business.David was able to use innovative techniques to turn a barren region of Los Angeles to a powerhouse for Vision33. Creating millions and millions of dollars a year in revenue that Vision33 never saw from that region previously. He did this because of the way he builds personal relationships with his clients and how he manages a sales cycle. There were very few opportunities David lost. In fact, he became the king of creating his own pipeline by doing creative events like his “Executive Luncheon” that had an anti-luncheon type there where desert was served first and used out of the box type of speakers that brought true value to all the businesses that came to learn how to grow their business and breakthrough the barriers preventing growth.After 4 years, David was given the opportunity to move back home. Vision33 had a new region that needed a General Manager to oversee it and that is the Northeast. Since March of 2018, David has been managing the Northeast from sales, implementations, customer service, everything where he is growing the business at a record pace. Even with the position that David currently has, he still feels that he has more to offer in order to help businesses grow and therefore on July 6, 2020, David launched the business podcast entitled Shark Bite Biz. This podcast is a discussion with subject matter experts and business owners discussing what works and what doesn’t in a global pandemic world.​Overall, David has had a tough, but fun career. It has always focused around one main topic though. Helping small to midsize businesses grow. There are many ways to do this and David uses his outside the box methodology in order to help his clients achieve that growth.Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level.https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/#RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Leadgeneration #Appointmentsetting #SacrificetoSuccess #SharkbitebizpodcastShark bite biz, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer,https://youtu.be/Bki9lRhp8VEfrom the City of Brotherly Love This isshark bite Biz with Davidstrausser you just arrived to the newestepisode of shark bite Biz I'm yourRockstar wab be host David strausser andthis is your place to learn how to growa business during complete Global chaosas always this episode is brought to youby our amazing sponsor and sap GlobalPlatinum partner sedor that's s d o r ifyour business is ready move offQuickBooks give us a ring help usautomate your business process and getyour business to the next level againthat's sor.com from Mom and Pop to largeEnterprise we have a solution for younow let's get back to today's episodeare call centers the place of the pastor the future let's think about this sowho do we have today none other thanRichard blank with probably the mostunique uh intro I've ever done andshortest as well too so it's pretty coolRichard blank has the largest collectionof restored American pinball machinesand antique rockola Juke boxes inCentral America making gamification astrong part ofCCC culture and CCC is Costa Rica callcenter which is the name of his businessso hey without further delay let's bringRichard right on in here businessstrategy Richard welcome to shark biteBiz you my friend you just became sharkbait I'm so happy to be Chum Costa RicanChum on your show today ah thank you somuch for coming on we have a traditionon the show very first question we askeverybody what's your background what doyou do for your living how'd you getthere what do you like about life whatdo you think happens after lifebasically in a nutshell tell us whatmakes Richard Richard let's give you aRichard Supreme Pizza um from NortheastPhiladelphia oh born and raised yeah manand uh decided to make Spanish my majorso I built on that momentum at Arizonamoved to Costa Rica when I was 27 yearsold started my business 15 years ago andI'm the CEO of Costa Rica's call centerso it's a journey of twists and turnsbut it was the kind of Vision Quest thatI stuck with when I was a young man anddecided what to do with my life wellthat is pretty amazingand you know we do people that watchthis show I know some people watch itjust not every episode they watch theones that are more interesting to themwhich is pretty cool but you know youwent Central America I went to uhNorthern Central America uh with Mexicobut then also Peru as well too um youknow and have built myself from scratchfrom the ground up like being an18-year-old in Latin America white guyfrom Cole country Pennsylvania as welltoolearning Spanish becoming bilingual umyou know we have a trational familyMexican Peruvian American uh so it'sbeen pretty crazy it sounds a little bitsimilar to kind of how you are and uhwhat you're doing look how many thingswe have in common and we just startedexactly but obviously the secondlanguage and open mind being a guest inother countries and being acceptedlearning to love it and Incorporated inyour life you and I have seen that thislanguage skills and being a traveler ofthe world a nomad opens so many doorsand so it's just one of things but it'snot for everybody I mean you sometimeshave to dip ail in the water travelfirst a little bit before settling downand you know seeing if it's the rightthing for you but I tell you what thethe world's an incredible place if yougive yourself a chance to explore it andno definitely 100% isso let's just talk that your originstory I mean what motivated you to moveto Costa Rica I mean i' personally I'vebeen to a couple places in CentralAmerica just got back from Panama a fewmonths ago but um you know I've neverbeen to Costa Rica I've heard it'samazing I heard it's beautiful I hearthere are a lot of Americans there notas many as are in Rosarito though uhRosarita Mexico but I do hear that thereare a lot of Americans down there or Xas they're called like what motivatedyou to move down there at the Costa RicaI tell you what you and I both grew upin Pennsylvania I remember those snowdays when they didn't call your numberfrom KYW News Radio that wasn't coolAbington it should be 301 I should becalling our name butanyway it was cold it was dreary and youwould fantasize about Gilligan's Islandor some place that was much more fun andso I knew that if I ever had a one in amillion opportunity and get get past myparents' guilt I might take it so I wasreally setting up for that barn door tobe open as you did as well with thatsecond language but no when when you goup in the Northeast it gives you alittle bit of grit you have somebackbone we're competitive withAthletics and life and and I likegrowing up there I thought the changingof the seasons and it's a nice culturethe colonial homes and the warm cozyfireplaces during you know the fall andthe winter can't beat it but the rowhomes in Philly but we needed to changejust to test ourselves and to see if wewere one trick pony or if we couldaccommodate to other different areas andso me being a Spanish major I was ableto use that language outside in TucsonArizona at the University of Arizona allthe World a Stage so if you think aboutit it was much easier for me to do thatcompared to another sort of major plusDavid I'll be straight I didn't have thematurity or the grades for IV League orfor medicine or law oh same here Ididn't go to college till later in lifetill the Great Recession when I wasforced to uh go to college because youknow I used to be able to get good jobswhen I was younger just because ofexperience in track record and thenduring the Great Recession things changethey were like yeah we want that but wealso want people to college degree andbecause of that I wasn't able to youknow it was hard it's what led me downthe path I'm on and where I'm at nowbecause I ended up having to doindependent Consulting and stuff likethat and it was bringing Americancompanies stuff into Mexico andeventually down to Peru and it it kindof was a blessing in disguise becausefor all those like you talked about grithaving that grit um you know it wasgritty for me you know like pullingteeth trying to make things work uhduring that time period but I eventuallydid get out of the rut and now you knowonce I of the world but I feel like I amstarting to ascend to a higher level andit's because I left yeah know I'm notfrom Philly Philly I live by Philly nowbut I'm originally from Pottsville thehome Yingling and you know that's cooldcountry Pennsylvania which is you knowentirely different than if I lived up inPhilly who knows maybe I would havenever wanted to move but being there I Iwanted to just get the heck out well inCosta Rica you meet people from all overthe world they're looking for the samething you and I did maybe to shed someskin or at a later stage in life whenyou have your maturity you could look atthings differently but I tell you whatit's unfortunate that you were forcedinto an education but hopefully some ofthese people inspired you to do somededicated practice or some pondering I Ifeel education's 5050 I I think ateacher can't pull you over into the endzone but they should be good enough toinspireand I've had teachers along the way notjust pay it forward but encouraged me towrite better to continue my studies inSpanish and Humanities and art and itwas nice it wasn't the pressure ofhaving to pass a test cheat in class orhustle my way for a certain grade theseteachers knew the score and they wouldallow you to take a test or write apaper or come to office hours if if youa is what you want then you got to earnit but they wanted to prepare you withyour balance bike and so I respectedthem they really made you earn thatgrade and if you put in the time you gotit but then again it wasn't punishmentwhen they asked you to elaborate or topractice your grammar because it wasmiscommunication and so you have torespect that person that has so muchpatience you have to you have to showthe dedicated practice to the teacher inorder for them to start mastering levelsand and going to other levels with youDavid so hopefully through that sort ofuniv University education you got thatit just wasn't a force March where youjust had to get a piece of paper yeah Imean it's crazy because um it it feltlike a lot there are some things that Ilearned but to be honest a lot of itI've already passed through in life likeI remember the one marketing class infact I'm friends with the professor tillthis day um who's out of Scrantonand uh I had to argue with him finalexam technically I flunked I'm like dudeI've been doing marketing my whole lifeand the way these questions were writtenI I went through every single one andI'm like no in the real life this wouldnot work why because of this and becauseof this yeah it looks good on paper butthis isn't how the real world worldworks you know and I think that was thedifference between me being someonethat's was out in the work for fieldsince I was 14 then going to collegewhen I was in my late 20s early 30scompared to someone that was fresh outof high school is like I had these reallife experiences the compar gads and youknow I think he gave me credit for everyquestion except for one of them which hewas like no I disagree I still thinkthis is right but I'm like okay you knowyou gave me 44 other ones so I'll letyou go on one but uh let's uh move alittle forward start a little bit aboutyou started a company from scratch downin Costa Rica what company did you startand what does it do well February 6th of2008 I closed my first deal for one seatfor Costa Rica's call center we're aNearshore bilingual dedicated callcenter that focuses on outbound saleslead generation appointment settinginbound customer support back officesupport and nonvoice support any type ofspecific Niche you go for oh we're knownfor our inbound customer supportcompanies such as Amazon P Intel andOracle have a very large presence hereand the school set the neutral Englishaccent the infrastructure the proxim tothe United States the stable governmentI mean the Ducks were all in a row andwhen I had the opportunity to come hereI was only supposed to be for two monthsmy friend wanted me to come down toteach English at his call center areally good friend of mine from collegeand as I was mentioning earlier barndoor open parents guilt wasn't there andI saw my opportunity and I decided tostay so I learned the business from theinside out not from sea level and I gotto see the good and the bad but guesswhat I did learn this is the real lifeexperience my good friend you werementioning earlier right I realize thatpeople just want their dignity theydon't want to feel Expendable they don'twant to feel like robots know somebody'sname really sincerely appreciate thework and I said to myself if that's allit takes to be a real Coach like the BadNews Bears I'm going to do this and souh I realized that by incorporatinggamification my pinball machines in myarcade and by personally knowing theirnames and teaching them soft skillswalking rows and breaking bread I mighthave that sort of Base Foundation thatyou and I grew up with where you want tocome back the next day you don't want toquit the sports team you want to do alittle bit extra not just to impressyour teacher but to impress yourselfbecause you're you're really into thisto win this and so I I I try to be adifferent boss that they've ever haddon't don't fear me how do you try to bedifferent like a different boss becauseeverybody tries to be different I thinkbut the way you emphasized and the waythat came out of your mouth it soundslike you have something special therethat you're trying to save by differentboss sure and these are littlecheckpoints you need little first downsbefore touchdowns with people I can'texpect them to sign a contract anddevote their life for me why don't Iasked them to tell me a Coming of Agemoment during an interview becauseyou've already qualified and I don'twant to see your bells and whistles Iwant to see in the moment if David asksyou an incredible question to know yourdeath are you capable expanding andtelling a little bit of something aboutyourself especially the time my friendwhen you beat up a bully or saved akitten let me see if I can give you acool nickname that day or pick you up ona rainy Tuesday and that's the sort ofthing where if I find the right sort offit no bad habits but someone willing tobe coached andto delegate and grow with the companythen then I'm finding my dirty dozen I Ihave 150 I don't have 50,000 so I couldbe exceptionally selective of thecampaigns in the agent so it's it's aluxury but then again when you find theperfect fit you win championships andlisten the fact that have people beenwith me over adecade it's humespecially the fact that you and I arefrom Pennsylvania we're here in in thesetype in this world where people Le intwo three years you know and that's anaverage career at a company people stayin for a decade plus I mean that is uhthat's rare loyalty these days yesyou're in Costa Rica yes the culture isa little bit different but I I thinkeven down there I mean staying withcompanies for your whole life is stillis starting to get a little bit moreoldfashioned is it not David let's let'skeep going on to what makes me differentI'm still on that momentum knowing yourname but calling the balls in thestrikes come on Pennsylvania boy youknow about giving that Northeast guiltI'm going to tell you how it is but I'mnot just going to beat you up and twistthe knife it's not fair I'm gonna firstask may I make a suggestion so yes Davidyou say yes so then that eliminates anysort of Defense now we're cool and thenprior to telling you your tie is notstraight I'm going to give you threestories about myself to put an anchorthere and to explain how I'veexperienced that as you're mentioningthis maturity and gray hairs that wehave over the younger students in yourclasses so explain to them these sort ofpasses that you went through and so Ican level that playing field you're inmy wheelhouse Don't Think You Can Dancethis I can run around it five times toSunday and teach you a nice after schoolspecial lesson so why don't we calm downhere because maybe your teacher yourbest friend your mentors drop that ballyou're with me now you're with Davidnow and we're going to treat you like amature adult give you the benefit of thedoubt and see what you can really do ifyou can eliminate any sort of blockageand so you ask what I dodifferently I can't buy it and I can'tspin it but if I can understand exactlywho you are and realize that I will giveyou a straight shot at to thetop I find Aces and I find Winners andif you're really young then you're theSquire to the night they're even betterthen we can really cultivate thoseskills and so I like uh personally Ilike younger sales reps because uh notthat they're young in their salesexperience but they're young in theirErp sales experience with what I do atsedor because then people like my salesrap Jake for example he's has all thesales skills but he's never had a coachor a mentor like me and now we'reputting it together and we just won hisfirst deal and it's going to be thefirst of many this kid not kid I mean he36 but this you know younger executiveis going to end up being an allar withina few years yo here's my virtual highfive ah there you go main man on and youknow what's cool David you're creating acompany culture that's what I wasbrought in that's that's part of thereason I was brought in it's like andpart of the reason why it came becauseit was like hey what we had wasn'tworking so I gone and uh come in and uhbuild what you need to be built and youknow do it and you know I've beenbuilding that I mean like transparencyhonesty uh even with things say leaddistribution stuff like that I mean yougot to remember I've been a sales rep Iknow how it is like hey why don't myboss do that like and it you know makesme upset in the back of my mind whereasif the boss would have just came out andsaid hey look just see you guys now I'mgiving Jake this lead not Neil this isthereason decision final okay and thenmaybe two months later but they all knowthat it comes back it'll be like heyNeil remember I gave that lead thatshould have been yours to Jake for aspecific reason well here's one from uhuh Jake uh that you're getting to takethat back because what goes around comesaround but I do it in the open so thateverybody knows what's going on andthere's no Mystique you know it takesthat away and I feel that by doing thatit allows a more open transparenthappier culture because people don'tfeel like someone's going behind theirback trying to stab my man man therewill always be Mystique oh there willalways be but I limit it a little bit Ilook at it like this Athletics is thegreatest way to gauge Merit if you'rethe fastest can jump the highest you winand so if you put everybody on a LevelPlaying Field and give everybody theresources the person that rises to thetop everybody else has to understandthey won and we do it through verystrict quality assurance kpis so I cangrade people on soft skills in the 10%wiggle room but 90% of this thing is iscut and dry and there are some peoplethat are just hitting perfect shots thatis absolutely absolutely true one thingI have and maybe you do or do not agreewith this uh it be interested and findout is Ibelieve okay so me personally I feellike I'm a chameleon okay I feel thatand I say that to the sense that I I Ican meet your personality I can meetyour tone or I can figure out a way thatI need to be in order to communicateeffectively with the person I'm talkingto most of the time now I say most ofthe time and this is where the questionis I feel everybody can't sell somebodythere's always one person out there nomatter for what reason personalitymismatch they just don't like the wayyour face looks whatever it meansyou will never be able to sell thatperson but I I view that's a very rareoccasion that's like a 99 out of 100type Prospect things but when yourealize that that's when again becauseyou have to always be you know reviewingand growing what you're doing to getbetter and learning from your past yourealize like hey I'm not going to beable to get through with this person soI'm gonna hand it out to someone thatcan potentially sell her um what do youthink about that whole philosophy thatwhole Spiel I have going on and hey it'smy show if you disagree you can freelydisagree we believe that anybody thatdoes sales prospecting and runs the riskof rejection we like to give themromanticdeaths I got to write that one down wellgood we jump clouds David if I could sayshark bite Biz podcast before you hangup I get a point if I could name dropyou I go David how are you today getanother point if you ask me who's thisnot in a negative tone because you'recurious because I said your name so welland I thank you for asking and mentionedmy name is Richard blank and then yousay who's Richard blank now I got thedouble double you ask the followupquestion and guess what we're already1520 seconds in those are two good longdeep breaths so at least it gives me achance 100 times a day to properlyintroduce myself prior to pitchingbecause you you get the P to pitch andif you have the luxury to speak to agatekeeper you give a positiveescalation when you get transferred youdo it written in verbal and these arethe sort of soft skills which will atleast put me from a half court to atleast a foul shotpercentage in regards to pitching ofcourse I'm going to miss a few but Itell you what I built a business on justbeing very courteous and doing meetingminutes and following through before theend of a business day and beingforthright with no surprises the waythat I was raised now mind you India andthe Philippines offshore they're half myprice why do people choose me well ifit's on marriage we can do it but ifyou're asking me to double theproduction in the same amount of timeit's almost impossible there's only somuch talk time but I've been able toearn accounts because of that sort ofsight unseen trust and people would liketo work with this a smaller company thatgives you that sort of extended serviceand so kind of sounds like value to meis what you're talking about if you wantit to be you're you're a salesrep imagine being on hold for a longtime where is that workforce managementyou didn't staff properly how aboutpeople that don't even have customerservice live departments and you have tofill out Omni Channel non-voice formsand wait you're going to elevate to yourpop and so it depends on how much youvalue a client could they give you areferral could you sell them additionalservices and you know you might retainthem or they might even make suggestionson what to do to sell them two scoops ofice cream and so you you take everythinginto consideration and some peopleyou're mentioning today about businessloyalty to companies how they treattheir clients well it's not just mebeing old school it's just my hardearned dollar and and I don't needbackflips and people swallowing swordwords but my goodness gracious let'slet's just have a deal where everyonemeets in the middle and I feel comfy andI want to come back but if you happen toremember my name my favorite dessert andyou make me feel really comfy on a on asad day or a day where I'm celebratingand by all means I'm gonna go there forthe next 20 years that's great you knowI I've gotta say your perspectiveattitude personality it is it it'sUnique I mean to be quite blunt with youand I find it uh kind of like we justused the word Mystique you know like uhit's got this this Vibe this Aura ofenergy that uh I don't know I kind offind it inspiring in a way with howyou're talking about these things andthe passion that you are talking aboutit when you're talking about it it itjust you know like I just see it leakingout from all pores of your body it'samazing so I mean I do want to go intothough there is one topic before we goin and that was a compliment by the wayjust so you know that was a good a nicecompliment that's why I didn't interruptyou you can keep going my mother'swatching this is great I was trying tomake you comfy on a on a happy day but Iwant to talk about one last topic beforewe do end up wrapping up okay first offyou did give some kind of advancedmarketing telemarketing strategy ideasof you know couple minutes ago when weweretalking today I think it's a little bitof the challenge like I have my salesreps out thereprospecting um and they're getting a lotof broken numbers a lot of a lot ofpeople change jobs during the Greatresignation during all the layoffs stufflike that uh remote work to where you'renot able to reach people directlyanymore and you get in uh you you knowthe name directory hell I guess we'llcall it and it it it's made it a littlebitmore challenging for us to get people onthe phone when we do get them on thephone it's usually pretty decent it's ait's a start you know and then we buildoff from there but it does make it alittle bit harder to get people on thephone what's your secret if you canshare without the you know spilling yoursecret sauce all over the place ofcourse I'm going to give thePennsylvania Secret Sauce oh there yougo it's whiz no I'm only kidding youhave to offset the lower contact ratiowith more of a quality call but thenyou're going to say Richard how's it aquality call if it's a cold call it's acold call because of the list it's aquality call because you might be ableto put yourself on third base well Iwant to I want to interrupt you rightthere because I want to to talk to myspecific scenario which I think manypeople people probably uh are feelingout there with me too like for examplewe have a list like you're saying whichis the cold call list but it is a veryvery high targeted you know down to thesick codes of businesses uh you know zipcodes even every like it's very targetedon what type of people what type ofcompany we're looking for and I thinkmany of our viewers are the same waythey're looking for a specific personand they may have that list but theirproblem is then actually breakingthrough so sorry for the interruptionbut maybe that can help with what youwere saying the frame it that way itdefinitely helps because a list likethat I could load into a predictivedialer and really you know pound thephones and carpet bum compared to manualdialing but if it's a list like that mysuggestion is if you have the luxury ofthe time just do a little bit of duediligence there are websites in LinkedInprofiles it may assist you with updatedin third party information definitelycompany culture you could complementloading docks second locations in mycase my art deco building neon lightsand my pinball machines you mentionedthat I'm giving you five minutes yoursto lose but getting back to that why dowe do this because you're speaking toless people but you have betterconversations because if I'm looking ata LinkedInprofile mentioned Pennsylvania look atall the things we had in common I meanobvious VI ly even if I was selling awidget that you didn't need we have waytoo much in common and these two shipsare passing T night we'd have to waveand talk for a couple minutes and wisheach other well on our similar Journeysand so in this crazy world of circlesthere are somecrisscrosses and if you're going to dothis from time to time you put your chinup your chest out and you representyourself in the company in the bestlight I get a lot of yeah were goodthanks but at least I'm going to sayDavid good morning so even if you hangup on me I'm like the full card as thetarot walking off of the cliff sniffingthe roads you have to not go into thiswith fear they're black and blue fromthese phone calls and if you get passedaround and you speak to Billy in the youknow mail room and Kathleen andaccounting when you speak to David youmention how great some of theseco-workers were and he's going to belike you're the first person to ever seethese things and so you need to be apainting stop being a print and if yougrind these calls you're going to hateit it becomes a force March but then youjust can't go out there as a fool whatyou need to do is to have structure anddiscipline but really show activeinterest in something and live in thenow because there will be something youhear in the background someone sayssomething something that's happeningthat you can anchor and then you pulland as I'm mentioning you get thesefirst downs 30 seconds to two minutecheckpoints of confirmation questionstie downquestions trans you know you got to havetransitional sentences with people justdon't there's no straight lines innature you need to have bridges inbetween these islands of conversationsby asking people if it makes sense ohthat's great so this next thing I'd liketo discuss and so you're you're dancingkind of like this podcast exactly that'swhy you do a great podcast David ohthank you so bu but it shouldn't be achore with people and they shouldn't bechecking their watches when they saythey don't have time 10 minutes shouldgo by and so you should really take eachcall that way so don't think of thenumbers you could have that one callthat could recommend five people so thenthere's your whole day and so everyonejust needs to slow down a bit and ifyou're trying to connect with people doit the real way you've definitely givenme a little bit of a different uhperspective and just listening to youspeak about this it has given me someideas on some things that we may try toimplement and change and yeah we meanwe've done like the LinkedIn looking upLinkedIn stuff and all of that but Ithink it's more the approach of howthey're doing it is what will ultimatelymake the difference in our success ratesbecause that's where we are strugglingbut we're also building it from scratchwith our bdr team and stuff like thatcustomade emails customade voicemails itdoesn't have to be the whole thing butback in our day there was somethingcalled mad lives where you put in anadjective and it can make the sentencefunny and so custom make the intro twoor three things in the body to Anchorand then a beautiful conclusion to showthat you did a due diligence you youdon't need to review the whole LinkedInprofile but there are a couple thingsthere that you could mention quickly inthe body to let him know that mygoodness gracious how much time did hespend reviewing the company very nice soyou're asking about voicemails andemails that's where you get your percentpercentages of call backs that's whereyou can net them you're hunting rightyou're hunting leaving the voicemailshopefully the message in the bottle hitsand then if you do do a good email orvoicemail that carries it comes back andso it's not the same as your contactratios before when everyone was pickingup but then again maybe you don't wantit that way it's better almost filteringto see who calls you back response tothe email because that could be theirpreference of communication compared tovoice and so you catch people that wouldprefer that and so um if you're good atwhat you do and you're very you have aneye-catcher and you're really good inyour subject matter and you get positiveescalations don't be surprised if youcan match if not exceed those oldnumbers with less work yeah yeah that'sgreat so since you have spilled so muchknowledge to us today I'm going to giveyou one minute one whole minute to tellus what you love about pinball machinesthe fact that I can afford them nowbecause go growing up they were soexpensive and Ricky schroer had the bestarcade and silver spoons and it wasn'tfair and so just like Tom Hanks in themovie Big look at his disposable incomehe got trampolines and all those gamesin that awesome Loft and so for me I'man owner of a company but I'm still akid and I combine the two you gotta havefun got the greatest arcade in CentralAmerica 13 pinball machines got an airhockey tables six arcade machines Jukeboxes that is awesome hopefully you havearrol Smith on those Juke boxessomewhere oh without a doubt but here'sthe skinny when I bought them here youfigured you would get a cache ofAerosmith but no it's all CentralAmerican artists from the 60s and 70snot even labas is in there and so that'scrazy so anyways Costa Rica's callcenter Richard tell us where can peoplefind out more about your company how canpeople reach out to you thank you Davidthey can buy a first class plane ticketcan come visit me in Central America butthey also can go visit my Costa Rica'scall center Facebook fan page we haveclose to118,000 local Costaricanos give your audience a chance toknow the business process Outsourcingindustry in Central America what we dobut also David when this goes live lookat all the new fans that you will haveand oh yeah I can't enough a great timetoday and natural you bring the best outof your guest H thank well it's prettyeasy when you have any guest as amazingas you are so Richard thank you so muchfor coming on I love what you're doing Imean it really comes down to helpingbusinesses grow and how to be a goodboss I mean that's how I that that'slike the two core messages I got out oftoday well just like us being inPennsylvania and the Broad StreetBullies the Flyers took it home in the70s and so sometimes you got to be achampion even if you're one of the newerteams in the league or a backupquarterback against a legendary seventime super Super Bowl win right exactlyand and your audience shouldn't be hardon themselves entrepreneurs they need tostart somewhere there's only so manykings they're more princes than Kingsout there and so just remember that yepdefinitely hey Richard thank you so muchmy friend this has been awesome thankyou my friend have a good one you toocheers wow that was an incredible chatwith Richard right first you all knowthe routine if you found this interviewhelpful if it Sparks some warm andfuzzies do me a favor hit the likebutton smash that subscribe but alsoplease share us out because you knowshark bite Biz is the greatest keptsecret in the world of small businessshare it us out to your friends yourfamily anywhere you can anywhere youdwell on the interweb I'd love to seenothing more than Richard blank and alsouh his COA Rica call center out there uhyou know trending let's do it now let'sget back to the real rock star of theshow Richard great hearing the uniqueenthusiasm that Richard has for callcentors and all the advice and expertisethat he gave us about how in 2023 postcopost work from home call centers stilldo work and they can be effective but itdoes seem like it's a little bit harderto be fair that was probably one of myfavorite interviews and Richard you aresuch a unique character I really loveyou dude awesome stuff again Richardthanks for coming on sharing yourexpertise and please check out the CostaRica call center business all the linkDown Below in the description questionof the day thoughts and call center Deador Alive leave a comment Down Below onYouTube We're on Spotify do you want tobe in the show interviews at SharkBitebiz.com we had a little bit of delaywe'll be scheduling soon also if you'rewatching on YouTube please join thechannel $3 a month you can become a babyshark and support the channel everydollar in is every dollar that goes outand we want to thank again our sponsorof the show sedor sedor thank you somuch if you're a business a small tomidsize business even large Enterprisefrom Mom and Pop large Enterprise andyou're running Antiquated software orsomething like QuickBooks orspreadsheets or God forbid MicrosoftAccess uh please reach out to sor.comreach out to me directly and we'll getyou hooked up with a system that worksfor your business you all know this bynow but I'll say it once again I'm Davidster this is shark bite Biz we'll seeyou all next episodeciao you just experienced shark bite Bizwith Davidstrausser please like comment Andsubscribe to the show to help us spreadthe word about personal professional andbusiness growth want to be on the showsend an email to interviews at SharkBitebiz.com a special shout out to oursponsor sap Platinum partner sedor getoff QuickBooks and move your business tothe next level reach out for more infothanks for listening and see you nexttime

Ver todos los episodios