It's better to clean a window than to break a window in childhood.Stand Out Get Noticed podcast (The C Method Episode 283) guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Christina Canters: For you, star, when did you first realize that this type of skill was so powerful?
Richard Blank: When I was a young man, I was, I was taught when you go over to a friend's house to wipe your feet and ask for permission and, and just. Know, your pleases and thank yous. And so instead of being known in elementary school as a bad child and not asked to come back, most of the parents said, you're one of the few friends I allow Christina to hang out with.
And so, um, I realized that by being polite was better than cursing. It's better to clean a window than to break a window. And, you know, you could always grow up and, and, you know, live life and, and figure out the stupid things to do in your childhood. . But when I was in my twenties and individuals were going for job interviews and they were too well rehearsed, they would stumble upon themselves.
And I tried that one time and I was very out of character. And then I said to myself in the mirror, it was right when I graduated college, I was never gonna do that again. Christina, either they're gonna love me or they're not gonna wanna work with me because if they love me, it's gonna allow me the sort of liberty and freedom
To be me and you'll get the best out of. Because if I'm in a in a box, I'll be miserable and you will not know the real person. And I try to do that here. I allow people to grow naturally. There's labor laws and people have to do certain things, but if somebody has an idea, Or I see the potential in someone, I will bend them but not break them.
I'll get them to stand up and do public speaking. I will have them sit in meetings with me and contribute. I will listen to their calls and not just say, Hey, great job, but I will let them know what they did. And so by allowing me to work with individuals from a C level where I could be humble. I could be, um, you know, show this sort of gratitude and interest in them.
It's amazing how many people tell me I'm the only boss that's ever done something like that. And so with all these people, cuz I compete against Amazon, they have thousands of people here, all the bells and whistles. But I do know this, Jeff Bezos didn't play pinball with everybody. . I walk the roads and I know everybody's.
I'll be there downstairs to say hello to your mother when she fix you up at work. And I don't need to be thousands, but my couple hundred that I have, the people that are with me, that's what they were looking for. They wanted the smaller shot. They wanted their name to be known. They wanted to grow. And that's why my friend, I believe that water seeks its own level.
Influence People Over The Phone With These Powerful Communication Techniques – with Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center [The C Method podcast Episode 283]
The C Method podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Christina Canters discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation, phonetic micro expression reading and INXS.
The C Method provides public speaking and communication skills training for high performing professionals.As a manager and leader, your ability to speak up, present with confidence and communicate well is key to career success.You may be highly skilled, intelligent and work harder than anyone, but if you can’t articulate your ideas clearly, engage your team or influence others to take action, it will hold you back from getting the promotions, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Listen to the 'Stand Out Get Noticed' podcast. Now at 2 million+ downloads! Discover how to develop a success mindset, speak with confidence, articulate yourself clearly and build strong relationships for more influence and impact in the workplace. Topics include: public speaking, mindset, social skills, overcoming fear, workplace communication, relationships and leadership.
Have you ever wanted to have more influence over the phone?
My guest this week is Richard Blank, CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Centre. He is a master of the cold call, and has trained over 10,000 telemarketers to improve their communication techniques over the phone.Richard is here to share his powerful techniques for improving your ability to lead and influence in conversation – and some of them are much simpler than you think!This will benefit you if you want to build better relationships and be more persuasive with your team, senior managers and clients.
“I love to allow people to feel more comfortable with me, to become more engaged in a conversation. This is not a lecture, and I’m not just checking off boxes and interrogating you. It’s a conversation. And it’s I mean, I don’t learn anything new when I speak. I love hearing what other people have to say to see what I have in common.”
This is Richard Blank’s story…
My name is Richard Blank and I’m the CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center. I’m skilled in reading phonetic micro expressions and use this to my advantage when speaking with people, especially over the phone.
I’ve found that by using someone’s name, asking how their company is doing, and sharing interesting facts about myself, I’m able to build rapport and influence the person I’m speaking with. This has been beneficial in both my personal and professional life.
In this episode, you will discover:
Phonetics is the purest form of communication, the sound of speech, not the semantics or even the tone.
The tone of voice should always be positive and empathetic.
0 seconds to 2 minutes is the best time to gauge a person.
How to gauge someone. They discuss some of the techniques they use to do it.
Richard believes in open-ended questions and specific name drops.
He also believes in the art of speech and meeting minutes to avoid conflict.
Richard’s advice to people is to be authentic.
When he was in his 20s, he tried to change his personality for a job interview, but he realised it was not going to work for him. Now he allows people to grow naturally.
He believes that people that feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel like they matter through the way that they communicate with others.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/Wl_tS1ielGg
https://youtu.be/fE6Ufvn-1Nc
https://youtu.be/NWxjuBEkzMI
https://youtu.be/R2GTKLTPkiA
https://youtu.be/M-x7nAeWBxw
https://youtu.be/dQWPUr_rsII
https://youtu.be/XnFQgNqQ3iA
https://youtu.be/iPP49p8dagI
https://youtu.be/rOWVfIfV-U8
https://youtu.be/z1jowztV8EA
https://youtu.be/aX85iiUrR88
https://thecmethod.com/podcast/standoutgetnoticed/influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-centre-episode-283/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JaJIUI4BKQ7mhAmW4b8To?si=5cc254ba7af14830
https://player.fm/series/2694716/346501897
https://podtail.com/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-com/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-pow/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/stand-out-get-noticed/episode/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-208353649
https://podknife.com/episodes/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://getpodcast.com/es/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-_1ba52e93a1
https://podcasts.apple.com/pe/podcast/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these/id984946507?i=1000585579846
https://deezer.page.link/pPgVrtZwEi988y6H6
https://chartable.com/podcasts/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-communication-skills-confidence-public-speaking/episodes/127787912-283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ0MjAzODAucnNz/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjbWV0aG9kLmNvbS8_cG9zdF90eXBlPXBvZGNhc3QmcD0yNTM5Mg?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjoi-a949v7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
https://pdcstly.com/en/episod/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank/17826865
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/984946507/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
How Remington Steel and Templeton Peck demonstrate advanced speaking skills. Stand Out Get Noticed podcast (The C Method Episode 283) guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Christina Canters: What do you say to people who might be listening, who might be thinking, well, what about me just being my authentic self? You know, if I'm trying to emulate someone else, isn't that then me becoming inauthentic or not true to myself in terms of how I communicate? What would you say to those people?
Richard Blank: Excellent question and, and let me rephrase that and thank you very much. You, you need to be you, because if you try to be somebody else, you're not gonna last long. You'll get caught after 20 minutes. And so since English is their second language in Costa Rica, really my suggestions were about proper grammar.
So they'd watch the bbc or they'd listen to Australia television and they would hear the different pronunciations so they can get the ear for it for the different clients. But there are certain dialect. You do pronounce words differently than we do in Philadelphia, compares to Queens English, and, and it's fine.
It's all beautiful speech, but as long as they keep training their ear, they, they might like, as I mentioned before, if they listen to something in parliament, a transitional sentence or a way that someone was able to diffuse conflict by saying, for my clarification, Christina, for my edification. Compared to, excuse me.
What'd you say? Could you repeat that? Or, as we discussed earlier, with word choices from help to lending a hand that's still authentic, these people aren't changing. All we're doing is assisting them in growing and giving them more, giving them more self-confidence and self-reliance. That is all. And so they would be capable of listening, contribut.
And giving that sort of impression to where people will wanna move forward and work with them, but it is practice now, if I could make some suggestions just for my own personal growth. I love television. I love all time radio, and so my favorite speakers were Basil Wrath Bone back in the forties and fifties.
I enjoyed very much Jeremy Brett that did a Sherlock Home series in the eighties, and I, I liked Pierce Brosnan as Remmington Steel and Dirk Benedict as Templeton Peck in the A Team. I thought these were phenomenal, glib, clever, poised, balance speakers, and I gravitated towards that and I thought that it was very nice and and charming.
To be able to have an extensive vocabulary to sit up straight, to speak. Well, and and I realize that a lot of doors open that way for you. You might get a second plate of food in someone's house, , you might get that back. And
Christina Canters: so when did this start? When did this journey?
Influence People Over The Phone With These Powerful Communication Techniques – with Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center [The C Method podcast Episode 283]
The C Method podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
The C Method podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Christina Canters discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation, phonetic micro expression reading and INXS.
The C Method provides public speaking and communication skills training for high performing professionals.As a manager and leader, your ability to speak up, present with confidence and communicate well is key to career success.You may be highly skilled, intelligent and work harder than anyone, but if you can’t articulate your ideas clearly, engage your team or influence others to take action, it will hold you back from getting the promotions, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Listen to the 'Stand Out Get Noticed' podcast. Now at 2 million+ downloads! Discover how to develop a success mindset, speak with confidence, articulate yourself clearly and build strong relationships for more influence and impact in the workplace. Topics include: public speaking, mindset, social skills, overcoming fear, workplace communication, relationships and leadership.
Have you ever wanted to have more influence over the phone?
My guest this week is Richard Blank, CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Centre. He is a master of the cold call, and has trained over 10,000 telemarketers to improve their communication techniques over the phone.Richard is here to share his powerful techniques for improving your ability to lead and influence in conversation – and some of them are much simpler than you think!This will benefit you if you want to build better relationships and be more persuasive with your team, senior managers and clients.
“I love to allow people to feel more comfortable with me, to become more engaged in a conversation. This is not a lecture, and I’m not just checking off boxes and interrogating you. It’s a conversation. And it’s I mean, I don’t learn anything new when I speak. I love hearing what other people have to say to see what I have in common.”
This is Richard Blank’s story…
My name is Richard Blank and I’m the CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center. I’m skilled in reading phonetic micro expressions and use this to my advantage when speaking with people, especially over the phone.
I’ve found that by using someone’s name, asking how their company is doing, and sharing interesting facts about myself, I’m able to build rapport and influence the person I’m speaking with. This has been beneficial in both my personal and professional life.
In this episode, you will discover:
Phonetics is the purest form of communication, the sound of speech, not the semantics or even the tone.
The tone of voice should always be positive and empathetic.
0 seconds to 2 minutes is the best time to gauge a person.
How to gauge someone. They discuss some of the techniques they use to do it.
Richard believes in open-ended questions and specific name drops.
He also believes in the art of speech and meeting minutes to avoid conflict.
Richard’s advice to people is to be authentic.
When he was in his 20s, he tried to change his personality for a job interview, but he realised it was not going to work for him. Now he allows people to grow naturally.
He believes that people that feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel like they matter through the way that they communicate with others.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/Wl_tS1ielGg
https://youtu.be/fE6Ufvn-1Nc
https://youtu.be/NWxjuBEkzMI
https://youtu.be/R2GTKLTPkiA
https://youtu.be/M-x7nAeWBxw
https://youtu.be/dQWPUr_rsII
https://youtu.be/XnFQgNqQ3iA
https://youtu.be/iPP49p8dagI
https://youtu.be/rOWVfIfV-U8
https://youtu.be/aX85iiUrR88
https://thecmethod.com/podcast/standoutgetnoticed/influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-centre-episode-283/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JaJIUI4BKQ7mhAmW4b8To?si=5cc254ba7af14830
https://player.fm/series/2694716/346501897
https://podtail.com/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-com/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-pow/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/stand-out-get-noticed/episode/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-208353649
https://podknife.com/episodes/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://getpodcast.com/es/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-_1ba52e93a1
https://podcasts.apple.com/pe/podcast/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these/id984946507?i=1000585579846
https://deezer.page.link/pPgVrtZwEi988y6H6
https://chartable.com/podcasts/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-communication-skills-confidence-public-speaking/episodes/127787912-283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ0MjAzODAucnNz/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjbWV0aG9kLmNvbS8_cG9zdF90eXBlPXBvZGNhc3QmcD0yNTM5Mg?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjoi-a949v7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
https://pdcstly.com/en/episod/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank/17826865
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/984946507/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
A style that immediately anchors with the client 100%. Stand Out Get Noticed podcast (The C Method Episode 283) guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Richard Blank: Because I'm letting you know that I'm vulnerable. I'm showing with you three or four things that I do it my call center by playing pinball with the agents by moving from Philadelphia to Costa Rica by once again talking about walkabouts and in excess and stuff. At least I'm showing some major interest.
And you're amazing country. Yeah. And so, um, these are the sort of soft skills that could be a me too technique that someone could. I, I chose three different things. Travel, music and games and business. And so one of 'em had to hit, I could talk about food if you want . You're not gonna do shrimps on the barbie.
Yeah, I could have done that one, but everyone does that one. But, um, yeah, and I, I, I try to be non-threatening. I don't do this on every call. I mean, once again, someone says, who are you? Well, that's when we used the buffer boomerang technique. Not saying Aaron's tone was negative. But sometimes they are. And so what I like to do is do the name draw, let 'em know it's an excellent question.
Repeat the question for active listening, and send it positive. And you know what my favorite part was before I was transferred to Christina? The fact that I was just about to get transferred. I stopped there and stop, stop, stop. And I'm getting transferred. I could have killed the call, but I said, stop. I gotta let you know.
That I'm gonna compliment you, . You
Christina Canters: gotta be feeling me. Oh, I love that. Yes, yes, of course you do. It's a positive
Richard Blank: escalation. Some people get paid on that at call centers and other companies, but it's really, so how about this one, Christina? Imagine if, if hypothetically, Aaron transferred me to the mail room.
And then I got transferred over into it, and then I got transferred over here and there. I write everybody's name down. So even though I spoke about Aaron, imagine if I mentioned two or three people. You'd be like, who are you? You got passed around. My company, no one speaks to Matt in the, in the mail room.
I go, he's like the nicest guy I ever met. Don't tell me that. That immediately anchors. With the client, hundred percent. It's yours. Hundred percent. It's yours to lose,
Christina Canters: and if the person doesn't say their name, I'm assuming you ask for their name.
Richard Blank: They don't need to. I just need to say my name. And I have to let them know and if I'm about to transfer them and they still don't wanna gimme the name, err.
Put out your nails. Well, good for you. Why don't you have a nice lunch? Relax a little bit. You should be a little sweeter on the phone. But let me put to you this way, you know perfectly wont. When I get transferred to you, I'm going to get their name cuz I'm gonna compliment Mr. Or Mrs. Bidder. And then when I call you company back, I'm be like, how you
Christina Canters: doing Buddy
And they're gonna be, how did you get my name? You know, I was gonna get your.
Richard Blank: You remember me, and then they love me to death. I, I, I get them. The shed is skin a little bit. Once someone gets complacent, especially is the first impression of a company that's terrible. They should be bells and whistles, trumpets, red carpets, guns a blazing.
And so maybe it's just to remind them that they need to sell that sizzle and to bring somebody in appropriate. So you can meet in the middle and start strong. That's, that's just my thought. Hm.
Influence People Over The Phone With These Powerful Communication Techniques – with Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center [The C Method podcast Episode 283]
The C Method podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
The C Method podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Christina Canters discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation, phonetic micro expression reading and INXS.
The C Method provides public speaking and communication skills training for high performing professionals.As a manager and leader, your ability to speak up, present with confidence and communicate well is key to career success.You may be highly skilled, intelligent and work harder than anyone, but if you can’t articulate your ideas clearly, engage your team or influence others to take action, it will hold you back from getting the promotions, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Listen to the 'Stand Out Get Noticed' podcast. Now at 2 million+ downloads! Discover how to develop a success mindset, speak with confidence, articulate yourself clearly and build strong relationships for more influence and impact in the workplace. Topics include: public speaking, mindset, social skills, overcoming fear, workplace communication, relationships and leadership.
Have you ever wanted to have more influence over the phone?
My guest this week is Richard Blank, CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Centre. He is a master of the cold call, and has trained over 10,000 telemarketers to improve their communication techniques over the phone.Richard is here to share his powerful techniques for improving your ability to lead and influence in conversation – and some of them are much simpler than you think!This will benefit you if you want to build better relationships and be more persuasive with your team, senior managers and clients.
“I love to allow people to feel more comfortable with me, to become more engaged in a conversation. This is not a lecture, and I’m not just checking off boxes and interrogating you. It’s a conversation. And it’s I mean, I don’t learn anything new when I speak. I love hearing what other people have to say to see what I have in common.”
This is Richard Blank’s story…
My name is Richard Blank and I’m the CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center. I’m skilled in reading phonetic micro expressions and use this to my advantage when speaking with people, especially over the phone.
I’ve found that by using someone’s name, asking how their company is doing, and sharing interesting facts about myself, I’m able to build rapport and influence the person I’m speaking with. This has been beneficial in both my personal and professional life.
In this episode, you will discover:
Phonetics is the purest form of communication, the sound of speech, not the semantics or even the tone.
The tone of voice should always be positive and empathetic.
0 seconds to 2 minutes is the best time to gauge a person.
How to gauge someone. They discuss some of the techniques they use to do it.
Richard believes in open-ended questions and specific name drops.
He also believes in the art of speech and meeting minutes to avoid conflict.
Richard’s advice to people is to be authentic.
When he was in his 20s, he tried to change his personality for a job interview, but he realised it was not going to work for him. Now he allows people to grow naturally.
He believes that people that feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel like they matter through the way that they communicate with others.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/Wl_tS1ielGg
https://youtu.be/fE6Ufvn-1Nc
https://youtu.be/NWxjuBEkzMI
https://youtu.be/R2GTKLTPkiA
https://youtu.be/M-x7nAeWBxw
https://youtu.be/dQWPUr_rsII
https://youtu.be/aX85iiUrR88
https://thecmethod.com/podcast/standoutgetnoticed/influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-centre-episode-283/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JaJIUI4BKQ7mhAmW4b8To?si=5cc254ba7af14830
https://player.fm/series/2694716/346501897
https://podtail.com/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-com/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-pow/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/stand-out-get-noticed/episode/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-208353649
https://podknife.com/episodes/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://getpodcast.com/es/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-_1ba52e93a1
https://podcasts.apple.com/pe/podcast/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these/id984946507?i=1000585579846
https://deezer.page.link/pPgVrtZwEi988y6H6
https://chartable.com/podcasts/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-communication-skills-confidence-public-speaking/episodes/127787912-283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ0MjAzODAucnNz/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjbWV0aG9kLmNvbS8_cG9zdF90eXBlPXBvZGNhc3QmcD0yNTM5Mg?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjoi-a949v7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
https://pdcstly.com/en/episod/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank/17826865
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/984946507/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
You're looking to gain 30 seconds for a pass to pitch a sale. Stand Out Get Noticed podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.[The C Method podcast Episode 283]
Christina Canters: So, Richard, can we take a step back? You mentioned earlier that when you say, when you're wanting to gauge someone, so when we bring it right back, you know, let's say like we're for someone who's in the workplace, they're working with a team, or maybe they're speaking to a, a high level manager, um, or a client, let's say yes.
What, why? Why are these techniques useful in terms of gauging? So what are we actually gauging with the other person and how does that then benefit us or benefit the relationship?
Richard Blank: Fantastic. Christina, you're really gaging positive or negative reinforcements, and since if it's someone you've known for a long time, you know if he gets you, but if it's someone you don't know and you can't see them, I don't know if you're nodding, taking notes or with me.
And so a lot of the times in the beginning, it's a very delicate area. To where you should listen twice and you speak. There's a very good time by asking open-ended questions that people will tell you what they're looking for. So you could have been way off. And also there's an attention span. And so I believe by doing specific name drops, it's more towards transitional sentencing or tie downs, and every sentence has personal pronouns like a your or an R.
So these are trigger words. Every sentence where I can just bring you in, bring you in, and then knock it in for the close. And so, um, I always believe in military alphabet because there's a lot of the times things are misspelled or mispronounced, and the last thing you want is an email bouncing back.
And these individuals, it's very time sensitive. So if you think that you're getting 10 minutes, you're, you're sadly mistaken, my friend. You're looking to gain 30 seconds for a pass to pitch. And you're not pitching for 10 minutes, you're doing ten one minute pitches like a boxer and around, because this is like, when we're nothing, things
Christina Canters: can adjust.
Yeah. So this is like when, so, so let's say we're having a phone call with someone and I mean, this could even be face to face right? As well. Yes. So, so, so what I'm hearing is that, um, we have a very short amount of time to influence. On the phone or face to face. So we need to be constantly keeping an ear out and gauging what their reaction is to us so that we can keep adapting.
Our style of communication is
Richard Blank: that, but my friend, we're not looking to do a cold call close every time you and I, for an example, we had to communicate multiple times because of scheduling conflicts. It wasn't anything bad, but life happens and you and I were professional. We communicated in real. And we are extremely flexible for convenience, and I think that was wonderful prior to jumping on this podcast today.
And that's not even a sale. It's just because you and I wanna work together and have an episode together. But I, I think if people are able to gauge boundaries, and maybe somebody would like to review your credentials before a contract, or maybe what you and I could have done today is move forward three or four paces and then tomorrow.
We can always pick up where we left off. And how about this one? Unless there is a major sense of urgency, give somebody the luxury of time, allow them the ponder, sleep on it, write a draft, and maybe not send it because the next day you might even make more progress that way. Then you would if you felt like you needed to force somebody's.
on a previous conversation. And so, um, I, I always believe that if you start something, it could always grow and you should never compare it to stuff you've done in the past. And each, each individual, it's almost like a riddle. And you know, how about this? I'd rather collect a million dimes than just gimme $100 bill.
And so things can be chipped. Masterpieces can be molded and worked on. And some of your best relationships, and you know this well, have been over a decade and these things are five minute conversations, the two hour lunches, and that's the way I look at an individual. You, you and I, my friend, don't know what's happening outside the office.
There might be something distracting them or influencing their decision, so give them the benefit of the doubt. Give them two or three different types of shoes to fit in. And then you'll know how to walk with them. Christine? Yeah.
Christina Canters: Do you have an example, Richard, of like a personal example of where you had to chip away at, you know, you know, collect the dimes as you say, in order to get that final end result that you wanted?
Richard Blank: Sure, and I was actually able to give myself major momentum in the beginning. Two things I did. When I like to prospect companies, I use my anonymity to my advantage. Not for the whole call, cuz that's shady, but my first impression is not to ask for your boss or to, you know, trip up on my intro. Usually I like to do a company name spike and I'll ask how the company is doing, so at least it sounds like a mystery shopper.
I've been there before and it really reduces any sort of defense from a gatekeeper or a filter.
Influence People Over The Phone With These Powerful Communication Techniques – with Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center [The C Method podcast Episode 283]
The C Method podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
The C Method podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Christina Canters discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation, phonetic micro expression reading and INXS.
The C Method provides public speaking and communication skills training for high performing professionals.As a manager and leader, your ability to speak up, present with confidence and communicate well is key to career success.You may be highly skilled, intelligent and work harder than anyone, but if you can’t articulate your ideas clearly, engage your team or influence others to take action, it will hold you back from getting the promotions, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Listen to the 'Stand Out Get Noticed' podcast. Now at 2 million+ downloads! Discover how to develop a success mindset, speak with confidence, articulate yourself clearly and build strong relationships for more influence and impact in the workplace. Topics include: public speaking, mindset, social skills, overcoming fear, workplace communication, relationships and leadership.
Have you ever wanted to have more influence over the phone?
My guest this week is Richard Blank, CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Centre. He is a master of the cold call, and has trained over 10,000 telemarketers to improve their communication techniques over the phone.Richard is here to share his powerful techniques for improving your ability to lead and influence in conversation – and some of them are much simpler than you think!This will benefit you if you want to build better relationships and be more persuasive with your team, senior managers and clients.
“I love to allow people to feel more comfortable with me, to become more engaged in a conversation. This is not a lecture, and I’m not just checking off boxes and interrogating you. It’s a conversation. And it’s I mean, I don’t learn anything new when I speak. I love hearing what other people have to say to see what I have in common.”
This is Richard Blank’s story…
My name is Richard Blank and I’m the CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center. I’m skilled in reading phonetic micro expressions and use this to my advantage when speaking with people, especially over the phone.
I’ve found that by using someone’s name, asking how their company is doing, and sharing interesting facts about myself, I’m able to build rapport and influence the person I’m speaking with. This has been beneficial in both my personal and professional life.
In this episode, you will discover:
Phonetics is the purest form of communication, the sound of speech, not the semantics or even the tone.
The tone of voice should always be positive and empathetic.
0 seconds to 2 minutes is the best time to gauge a person.
How to gauge someone. They discuss some of the techniques they use to do it.
Richard believes in open-ended questions and specific name drops.
He also believes in the art of speech and meeting minutes to avoid conflict.
Richard’s advice to people is to be authentic.
When he was in his 20s, he tried to change his personality for a job interview, but he realised it was not going to work for him. Now he allows people to grow naturally.
He believes that people that feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel like they matter through the way that they communicate with others.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/Wl_tS1ielGg
https://youtu.be/fE6Ufvn-1Nc
https://youtu.be/NWxjuBEkzMI
https://youtu.be/aX85iiUrR88
https://thecmethod.com/podcast/standoutgetnoticed/influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-centre-episode-283/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JaJIUI4BKQ7mhAmW4b8To?si=5cc254ba7af14830
https://player.fm/series/2694716/346501897
https://podtail.com/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-com/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-pow/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/stand-out-get-noticed/episode/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank-208353649
https://podknife.com/episodes/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://getpodcast.com/es/podcast/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-_1ba52e93a1
https://podcasts.apple.com/pe/podcast/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these/id984946507?i=1000585579846
https://deezer.page.link/pPgVrtZwEi988y6H6
https://chartable.com/podcasts/stand-out-get-noticed-by-the-c-method-business-communication-skills-confidence-public-speaking/episodes/127787912-283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ0MjAzODAucnNz/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjbWV0aG9kLmNvbS8_cG9zdF90eXBlPXBvZGNhc3QmcD0yNTM5Mg?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjoi-a949v7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
https://pdcstly.com/en/episod/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank/17826865
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/984946507/stand-out-get-noticed/283-influence-people-over-the-phone-with-these-powerful-communication-techniques-with-richard-blank
My executive staff are not yes men. I don't need a Simpson's Show Smithers on my team. TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Richard Blank: May be different from mine. And so as long as there's no surprises prior, and we can adjust that accordingly, it should flow exceptionally well.
Janis Melillo: Right. So the next question that I wanna ask you, obviously you know a lot about your business of course, but what sort of systems? For instance, like I love Trello.
Trello is my go-to organization thing. Devices or what type of applications do you use within your own business and why do you love them? Like why do you use them because you like them or because of their pro productivity or.
Richard Blank: Most of the time we're logging into the client CRM and their phone system.
But let, let me go back to something that's original pen and paper. I, my reliable system is if the lights go out and the internet goes down, my supervisors . I need to make sure that I have the right individuals that are with me, support me. They're not yes men. I don't need to Smithers. To say yes to everything I say.
I want someone that could be a devil's advocate or make suggestions. And so besides plugging and playing into my client's systems, what I have once again are individuals that rose the ranks, know my culture, earn their stripes, and are some of the best supervisors and directors in this country. And so these are the ones that are molding the newer agents and supporting the other agents to continue to perform.
Cause once again, your systems in place could be helpful, but if the agent is not competent, is not reliable, is not dedicated, your system's just gonna collect dust. And so once again, it's really about the individual that will be managing these systems that I have. But I always learn things that are seamless.
I like stuff that will reduce any sort of wrap up time. If somebody has dropdowns while we're on the phone or can do an easy transfer or there's information that can be, um, Shown to me prior to a call or during a call. That's helpful. A lot of my clients are creating lists, so we are sent to do some due diligence and research, which can slow us down, but then again, could also give us advantages if we find certain things on a LinkedIn or a company website.
So really, I, I kind of take it on a, on a vertical basis, but to me, if somebody is doing something manual, Compared to a predictive dialer, you can't expect me to do four times the amount of work. What can, I can have almost a hundred percent contact ratio on a predictive dialer, 1000 leads. So these are the sort of things, Janice, I almost have to, I have to explain from an educated point of view, the advantages and possibly disadvantages of the suggestions that they are making.
And it's nothing personal, but you can't expect me to do a certain amount of. When there's a certain amount of talk time and a wrap up time and you're using things manually. And so, um, once again, we have a lot of resources to offer, but most of the time the clients are buried at the ready.
Janis Melillo: Wow, that is amazing.
I have so enjoyed this conversation. How can people, um, our, my viewers and listeners,
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Janis Melillo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
In a now all consuming digital world, Virtual Assistant's are in such high demand. From choosing which social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and many others; knowing how to hire a VA is just as important as to which social media outlet you should use. Did you know that hiring a VA will actually save you money? Janis Melillo is a Virtual Assistant, Business Coach, Ghostwriter, Author, Publisher, Speaker, Podcast Co-Host.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/kJus0bLJBCI
https://youtu.be/CeaeZlgcA_Q
https://youtu.be/WyBcKPONXhw
https://youtu.be/SeXAlO8kQR0
https://youtu.be/x9uYZb_c4VI
https://youtu.be/tGyk9vWbgUc
https://youtu.be/JonGMOF7xB4
https://youtu.be/RmvKuK4N-q4
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/trulyyourva-with-janis-4667344/episodes/this-is-not-your-usual-call-ce-143296088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyv7cqXIykc
https://rumble.com/v1als7a-this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhZZj4h2ALw7/
https://anchor.fm/janis-melillo/episodes/This-Is-Not-Your-Usual-Call-Center---CEO-Richard-Blanks-Approach-to-Business---06-30-22-e1klioj
https://www.trulyyourvawithjanis.com/this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-063022/
https://fb.watch/gSeXAmSk5J/
Buffer Boomerang Technique explained on the TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast. Special guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Janis Melillo: K. Another question, and I'm not sure what this is, I'm very intrigued by it, and I have to tell you about four or five times I went to go on Google just to search this term, but I'm like, I, I wanted to save that suspense for this question. Yes. Tell me more about the famous buffering boomerang
Richard Blank: technique.
The buffer boomerang technique? Mm-hmm. , I like it. It's really more of conflict management because somebody may ask you a question with a very negative tone. In fact, I'll show you the image. There's my famous buffer boomerang technique, so somebody might ask you a question with a negative tone. What I like to do is buffer the negative tone.
I like to do a name. Bring it around by saying, that's an excellent question. Repeating the question to show active listening and then sending it back as a plus two. So for an example, let's say I'm prospecting your company. I'm calling truly your va, and somebody says, What is your name? I go, Ah. Janice, I'm so glad that you asked that question.
Once again, my name is Richard Blank, and so you can almost reset the tone on something like that. People will be asking you questions and so I think instead of just answering it as a, you know, a toe to toe's office answering a question cuz you're in trouble. Sometimes you need to buffer the tone, smooth that out a bit, show the active listening and send it back.
And so a lot of the times people will also be doing desert pitching or they'll just be going through a list of the services that they have. I, I think people need to pause every now and again for rest and for drink. In a desert, you need an oasis. And there's also times for positive and negative reinforcement.
And when you find a certain area that you like, you take it from a horizontal to a vertical. And then you start stacking open-ended questions. These like your virtual assistants, they need to show empathy on the phone and a lot of active listening. I believe that using names are very important. You should do that during tie down or pin down or clarification questions, and then amongst the conversation, using the pronouns of your and are to keep their attention in every 32nd.
Two minute intervals. And so buffer Boomerang is really just one of many techniques just to show active listening, so you're not just reacting, you're almost in mode of acting because of listening and adjusting your conversation accordingly. So the most frustrating thing is repeating. And so as long as that you once again, understand where that person is coming from, it could lower temperatures, bring back a speed and give you a little bit more control on a call.
Janis Melillo: I love that because Richard, I think there is such a difference from hearing to listening. So you take an active engagement, for instance, obviously we're on Zoom, we're streaming live through, uh, through my Facebook page and people can hear it, but are they listening?
Richard Blank: Most of the time though.
Janis Melillo: Yes, I, I, I agree.
I agree. Objections right there. There's a lot of distractions and I think in, in our, like I said, in the digital world today, you know, there's, for instance, news notifications. I've had to turn off all my news notifications as much as possible because it's distracting. Because when I'm working for a client, as I'm sure you are, because I think we have the same, uh, work ethic, I have to tune, I turn, tune all that stuff out because that is a distraction and it's only human nature to, you know, look down.
Oh, you know, there's some other news alert. Turn off the distractions. Cause I think that's a lot of outside clutter. We don't need clutter when we're focusing on the task at hand.
Richard Blank: We may not have the luxury of that sort of controlled environment in our offices Right now, there's no distractions. But if you and I were somewhere having lunch and there's a lot of noise, we still might need to find that focus.
So that's why I mentioned 30 seconds to two minutes. And I also believe, once again, when you are, um, engaged with the individual by having checkpoints either repeating what you say, confirming what you say, thumbing up what you say, moving on on what you say, because it would be foolish of me to be three or four points down or thinking of that.
We haven't even confirmed the one that we are on right now. Mm-hmm. . So people need to slow down a bit. And I think what's very important for me as well, and it can almost set the pace as a positive escalation, if there are individuals that assist you prior to being transferred or just anybody along the way, they should be mentioned verbally and in writing.
So let's just say hypothetically I'm calling a company back. This individual answering the phone will thank me for that compliment. Give me more company information, company culture, and would love to transfer the call. So it's almost like the philosophy of wwe, Janice. Well, we're just trying to reduce any sort of resistance.
Go with the current. Mm-hmm. , let the wind be in your sales. And so when you're trying to force a fit, you're trying to shove in your point, you're stepping on someone's toes, you're interrupting. We're not dancing well. And I think there's a very good place. Where through deductive reasoning, letting the person talk and then choosing.
What is the area of focus and possibly getting back to what you need to later in the conversa? Your conversation may be prolonged, but it's also a quality call, and I'm not saying we're repeating anything. What we're possibly doing, Dennis is expanding on certain topics where I couldn't get it before. I love meeting minute.
Because when someone concludes a conversation, if they can send an email back on all the points that they talked about, a, they're accountable for it. It's dated, so someone can't say they forgot about it. And it's an excellent point that where you pick up, where you left off, you start going through the, the checkpoint and delegating.
Who has a responsibility, if these are just first time relationships, we need to create certain boundaries and parameters and protocols because your way of working may be different from mine. And so as long as there's no surprises prior, and we can adjust that accordingly, it should flow exceptionally well.
Janis Melillo: Right. So the next question that I wanna ask you,
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Janis Melillo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
In a now all consuming digital world, Virtual Assistant's are in such high demand. From choosing which social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and many others; knowing how to hire a VA is just as important as to which social media outlet you should use. Did you know that hiring a VA will actually save you money? Janis Melillo is a Virtual Assistant, Business Coach, Ghostwriter, Author, Publisher, Speaker, Podcast Co-Host.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/kJus0bLJBCI
https://youtu.be/CeaeZlgcA_Q
https://youtu.be/WyBcKPONXhw
https://youtu.be/SeXAlO8kQR0
https://youtu.be/x9uYZb_c4VI
https://youtu.be/tGyk9vWbgUc
https://youtu.be/JonGMOF7xB4
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/trulyyourva-with-janis-4667344/episodes/this-is-not-your-usual-call-ce-143296088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyv7cqXIykc
https://rumble.com/v1als7a-this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhZZj4h2ALw7/
https://anchor.fm/janis-melillo/episodes/This-Is-Not-Your-Usual-Call-Center---CEO-Richard-Blanks-Approach-to-Business---06-30-22-e1klioj
https://www.trulyyourvawithjanis.com/this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-063022/
https://fb.watch/gSeXAmSk5J/
on the TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast. Special guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Janis Melillo: K. Another question, and I'm not sure what this is, I'm very intrigued by it, and I have to tell you about four or five times I went to go on Google just to search this term, but I'm like, I, I wanted to save that suspense for this question. Yes. Tell me more about the famous buffering boomerang
Richard Blank: technique.
The buffer boomerang technique? Mm-hmm. , I like it. It's really more of conflict management because somebody may ask you a question with a very negative tone. In fact, I'll show you the image. There's my famous buffer boomerang technique, so somebody might ask you a question with a negative tone. What I like to do is buffer the negative tone.
I like to do a name. Bring it around by saying, that's an excellent question. Repeating the question to show active listening and then sending it back as a plus two. So for an example, let's say I'm prospecting your company. I'm calling truly your va, and somebody says, What is your name? I go, Ah. Janice, I'm so glad that you asked that question.
Once again, my name is Richard Blank, and so you can almost reset the tone on something like that. People will be asking you questions and so I think instead of just answering it as a, you know, a toe to toe's office answering a question cuz you're in trouble. Sometimes you need to buffer the tone, smooth that out a bit, show the active listening and send it back.
And so a lot of the times people will also be doing desert pitching or they'll just be going through a list of the services that they have. I, I think people need to pause every now and again for rest and for drink. In a desert, you need an oasis. And there's also times for positive and negative reinforcement.
And when you find a certain area that you like, you take it from a horizontal to a vertical. And then you start stacking open-ended questions. These like your virtual assistants, they need to show empathy on the phone and a lot of active listening. I believe that using names are very important. You should do that during tie down or pin down or clarification questions, and then amongst the conversation, using the pronouns of your and are to keep their attention in every 32nd.
Two minute intervals. And so buffer Boomerang is really just one of many techniques just to show active listening, so you're not just reacting, you're almost in mode of acting because of listening and adjusting your conversation accordingly. So the most frustrating thing is repeating. And so as long as that you once again, understand where that person is coming from, it could lower temperatures, bring back a speed and give you a little bit more control on a call.
Janis Melillo: I love that because Richard, I think there is such a difference from hearing to listening. So you take an active engagement, for instance, obviously we're on Zoom, we're streaming live through, uh, through my Facebook page and people can hear it, but are they listening?
Richard Blank: Most of the time though.
Janis Melillo: Yes, I, I, I agree.
I agree. Objections right there. There's a lot of distractions and I think in, in our, like I said, in the digital world today, you know, there's, for instance, news notifications. I've had to turn off all my news notifications as much as possible because it's distracting. Because when I'm working for a client, as I'm sure you are, because I think we have the same, uh, work ethic, I have to tune, I turn, tune all that stuff out because that is a distraction and it's only human nature to, you know, look down.
Oh, you know, there's some other news alert. Turn off the distractions. Cause I think that's a lot of outside clutter. We don't need clutter when we're focusing on the task at hand.
Richard Blank: We may not have the luxury of that sort of controlled environment in our offices Right now, there's no distractions. But if you and I were somewhere having lunch and there's a lot of noise, we still might need to find that focus.
So that's why I mentioned 30 seconds to two minutes. And I also believe, once again, when you are, um, engaged with the individual by having checkpoints either repeating what you say, confirming what you say, thumbing up what you say, moving on on what you say, because it would be foolish of me to be three or four points down or thinking of that.
We haven't even confirmed the one that we are on right now. Mm-hmm. . So people need to slow down a bit. And I think what's very important for me as well, and it can almost set the pace as a positive escalation, if there are individuals that assist you prior to being transferred or just anybody along the way, they should be mentioned verbally and in writing.
So let's just say hypothetically I'm calling a company back. This individual answering the phone will thank me for that compliment. Give me more company information, company culture, and would love to transfer the call. So it's almost like the philosophy of wwe, Janice. Well, we're just trying to reduce any sort of resistance.
Go with the current. Mm-hmm. , let the wind be in your sales. And so when you're trying to force a fit, you're trying to shove in your point, you're stepping on someone's toes, you're interrupting. We're not dancing well. And I think there's a very good place. Where through deductive reasoning, letting the person talk and then choosing.
What is the area of focus and possibly getting back to what you need to later in the conversa? Your conversation may be prolonged, but it's also a quality call, and I'm not saying we're repeating anything. What we're possibly doing, Dennis is expanding on certain topics where I couldn't get it before. I love meeting minute.
Because when someone concludes a conversation, if they can send an email back on all the points that they talked about, a, they're accountable for it. It's dated, so someone can't say they forgot about it. And it's an excellent point that where you pick up, where you left off, you start going through the, the checkpoint and delegating.
Who has a responsibility, if these are just first time relationships, we need to create certain boundaries and parameters and protocols because your way of working may be different from mine. And so as long as there's no surprises prior, and we can adjust that accordingly, it should flow exceptionally well.
Janis Melillo: Right. So the next question that I wanna ask you,
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Janis Melillo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
In a now all consuming digital world, Virtual Assistant's are in such high demand. From choosing which social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and many others; knowing how to hire a VA is just as important as to which social media outlet you should use. Did you know that hiring a VA will actually save you money? Janis Melillo is a Virtual Assistant, Business Coach, Ghostwriter, Author, Publisher, Speaker, Podcast Co-Host.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/kJus0bLJBCI
https://youtu.be/CeaeZlgcA_Q
https://youtu.be/WyBcKPONXhw
https://youtu.be/SeXAlO8kQR0
https://youtu.be/x9uYZb_c4VI
https://youtu.be/tGyk9vWbgUc
https://youtu.be/JonGMOF7xB4
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/trulyyourva-with-janis-4667344/episodes/this-is-not-your-usual-call-ce-143296088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyv7cqXIykc
https://rumble.com/v1als7a-this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhZZj4h2ALw7/
https://anchor.fm/janis-melillo/episodes/This-Is-Not-Your-Usual-Call-Center---CEO-Richard-Blanks-Approach-to-Business---06-30-22-e1klioj
https://www.trulyyourvawithjanis.com/this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-063022/
https://fb.watch/gSeXAmSk5J/
I was still on my vision quest when I came to Costa Rica.TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Richard Blank: And so I really take it from a case by case old school basis when I'm dealing with the people that work with me.
Janis Melillo: Wow, that is amazing. So you, you've, like you said, you've been there for 22 years. You, you decided, you know, to build your own company. What was that moment? Because I think so many people out there today, for instance, who, um, you know, were in the era where we work virtually.
I'm a virtual assistant, but for somebody who wants to start their own brick and mortar business, can you share some of. Challenges, but also the excitement that came along with.
Richard Blank: Absolutely. I was still on my vision quest when I came to Costa Rica looking for my walkabout and to shed some skin, and I will be forthright with you.
It did take into my mid thirties for impulse control maturity and have enough capital to start a business. Mm-hmm. and a lot of people may overextend themselves by taking out loans or mortgages or just trying to, uh, create a certain image of bells and whistles where, you know, they're not acting their wage, they're just giving an impression.
And so for me, I, I wanted to do it slow and. And as grandma said, if you can't pay for it in cash, you just don't do it. And so when I started my call center, I was working out of my home, but I was also renting an individual turnkey station from a blended center. So I didn't have privacy. I was just on an open floor plan and just renting seats per month and paying the taxes and making a margin.
And after a couple years, I saved enough capital and really knew the business to then rent. And purchase enough to build out 150 stations in a server room, and then after about six years, I had enough to be able to build a 300 seat station that I currently own and I'm at right now. So as much as I want to give the glamour to it and the fast track, a lot of the time a business is building on foundation and doubling down on yourself and saving money so you can weather certain storms and just be very conservative.
And I like it that way. In fact, I'm very selective of the campaigns that come in here because A, it's my reputation. And B, it's also seller's market. If the agent doesn't wanna do it, I. Fill seeds. So it's an extremely delicate balance, and the fact that I am hands. I like to walk the rows and break bread with the agents and to listen to them and coach them.
I, I think I gain a couple gold medals there because a lot of, I might be able to even break some stereotypes and misconceptions of what a business owner, a telemarketer, or even what a call center is. It's not like what you see in the movies. Wolf of Wall Street's amazing. Glen Gary, Glen Ross, and Boiler Room, but not every call center sells stock.
And that might not be the appropriate profile for truly your VA or for individuals that work with you, Jan. So these are the sort of things that we take into consideration when offering, um, our services to potential clients.
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Janis Melillo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
In a now all consuming digital world, Virtual Assistant's are in such high demand. From choosing which social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and many others; knowing how to hire a VA is just as important as to which social media outlet you should use. Did you know that hiring a VA will actually save you money? Janis Melillo is a Virtual Assistant, Business Coach, Ghostwriter, Author, Publisher, Speaker, Podcast Co-Host.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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/
https://youtu.be/kJus0bLJBCI
https://youtu.be/CeaeZlgcA_Q
https://youtu.be/WyBcKPONXhw
https://youtu.be/SeXAlO8kQR0
https://youtu.be/x9uYZb_c4VI
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/trulyyourva-with-janis-4667344/episodes/this-is-not-your-usual-call-ce-143296088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyv7cqXIykc
https://rumble.com/v1als7a-this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhZZj4h2ALw7/
https://anchor.fm/janis-melillo/episodes/This-Is-Not-Your-Usual-Call-Center---CEO-Richard-Blanks-Approach-to-Business---06-30-22-e1klioj
https://www.trulyyourvawithjanis.com/this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-063022/
https://fb.watch/gSeXAmSk5J/
I love the fact that we start with dessert first. TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Janis Melillo: Good afternoon everyone. I am so excited to be here today. My name is Janice, and I am the host of Truly Your VA with Janice. For those of you don't know, VA of course stands for Virtual Assistant, and I am also a podcast manager. Go figure today. I am so excited to have on my podcast. Mr. Richard Blank, welcome to the truly year BA with
Richard Blank: Janice.
Janice, I'm so happy to be here with you today and to share ideas with you and your amazing audience. Well,
Janis Melillo: wonderful. Thank you so much. So I have so many questions to ask you, and before we hopped on, you know, I did make reference to your boxes. And before we get into the, the business discussion, I understand that, uh, you have the largest collect.
Of American pinball machines in, um, I'm gonna pronounce this, rock out, juke boxes in Central America. Is that, is that
Richard Blank: so? I love the fact that we start with dessert first. Absolutely. . I am an avid collector of retro pinball machines, juke boxes. Arcade machine. So I've created a gamification culture so the agents can meet people from other departments, let off steam and hang out with their hefy in the game room, old school style.
Janis Melillo: Oh my God. I absolutely love that. So that leads me to the next question. Of course. Um, you have a business that is, I think so, is underrated in my opinion, because, Why don't you start us off before I just go any further on what led you to be where you are today? You're in Costa Rica, correct?
Richard Blank: That is correct.
In Central America. Been here for the last 22 years.
Janis Melillo: Wow, and your business
Richard Blank: is Costa Rica's Call center. We're a bilingual dedicated. Nearshore call center that deals with appointment setting, lead generation, and inbound support. And so our agents here are brilliant college educated. They're coming to the table once again with structure and discipline by speaking a second language.
Mm-hmm. . And by creating a certain sort of work culture where they're synergy and I look to promote people and we invest in them. Our attrition is very low and our production is extremely high.
Janis Melillo: Wow. So, You, you were, you've been in Costa Rica for 22 years. What led you to start this type of business?
Richard Blank: There's really no blueprint for it, and so when I was in high school in Northeast Philadelphia, I doubled down on my favorite class, which was Spanish. So when I graduated Abington in 91. , I went to the University of Arizona, was a Spanish communication major. Mm-hmm. , because at 18, what are you gonna choose unless you have a predestined career and you follow certain opinions where people raise you compared to you raising yourself.
Mm-hmm. , I had to understand that I needed to be marketable. And versatile. And if there was a way that I could separate myself from friends, by being able to translate and to speak, I might be able to have a different career path. And so at 27 I was given a one and a million opportunity. It was only supposed to be for two months, and I came down to my friend's call center to train and teach English, and I just fell in love with it so much.
I decided to put my stuff in storage in the United States and. You know, throw my hat in the ring and try a life here. And when you learn a business from the inside and out and you're with the people, the proletariat, you can really understand ways to enhance the experience. And so in my mid thirties, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and start my own company.
That
Janis Melillo: is just so amazing to me. Now internal. Interpersonal communications conflict, Like in reference to like management strategy? Yes. Must of, especially with training, how many people that you've trained, of course those skills must have been like second nature to you.
Richard Blank: Well, I believe in manners and you and I have spoken off the air multiple times.
I believe that we were raised in, in. Fashion's from our grandparents and parents. So I'm coming to the table with agents in a very strict Catholic country. So it's very family oriented, even multi-generational family. So people do live with others that influence them. And secondly, I believe in empathy and dignity.
As long as I don't treat somebody like a robot or a number, I properly prepare them and support them. Why shouldn't I get that sort of positive reinforcement where people would wanna continue to walk with? And to grow with me. And also there are things that do happen outside the office that may affect their work performance here.
So as long as we take people's personal situations into consideration, I think there's a better chance to find sort of resolutions. And also solidifying even a better relationship cuz we were able to get through certain challenges together. Right. And so I really take it from a case by case old school basis when I'm dealing with the people that work with me.
Janis Melillo: Wow, that is amazing. So you.
TrulyYourVA with Janis podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Janis Melillo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
In a now all consuming digital world, Virtual Assistant's are in such high demand. From choosing which social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and many others; knowing how to hire a VA is just as important as to which social media outlet you should use. Did you know that hiring a VA will actually save you money? Janis Melillo is a Virtual Assistant, Business Coach, Ghostwriter, Author, Publisher, Speaker, Podcast Co-Host.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/CeaeZlgcA_Q
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://youtu.be/kJus0bLJBCI
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/trulyyourva-with-janis-4667344/episodes/this-is-not-your-usual-call-ce-143296088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyv7cqXIykc
https://rumble.com/v1als7a-this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhZZj4h2ALw7/
https://anchor.fm/janis-melillo/episodes/This-Is-Not-Your-Usual-Call-Center---CEO-Richard-Blanks-Approach-to-Business---06-30-22-e1klioj
https://www.trulyyourvawithjanis.com/this-is-not-your-usual-call-center-ceo-richard-blanks-approach-to-business-063022/
https://fb.watch/gSeXAmSk5J/
Louisiana Country Boy: Can you please if it's okay, and again, just tell the people about the other side of Richard I, not the personal side, not the business side of Richard, the business side of Richard. I mean, I mean, you ain't got to now. You ain't got to you. You know, you tell me. I, Well,
Richard Blank: it's my pleasure. I, you know, I'm a CEO of a, of a bilingual call center in Costa Rica.
These agents here make outbound appointment setting and lead generation. They also take inbound customer support and non-voice support. We do not call you at dinner cuz if I do, you're never gonna, you're never gonna talk to me again. And we're very selective of the campaigns that come in here cuz this is a very strict Catholic country.
I wanna make sure that the agents can go home and tell their parents what they do for a living. I prefer to bring in people that sometimes do not have call center experience because they could be bringing in bad habits or be a. I prefer somebody that is bilingual and has these skills where I can mold them.
It's very easy to teach 'em a CRM and and phone system, but you know, if they're coachable, if as you say, they have the grit and desire, it's my pleasure to find ways to delegate in order to promote them. It's very important for me as well to give positive reinforcement to the. I do it through quality assurance.
We listen to their recordings and I can grade them on certain metrics and I just don't grade on the simple stuff. You and I talk about bedside manner and certain soft skills diplomacy, since English is their second language. Donnie, I really focus on the FSOs so I can expand their vocabulary with similes.
So instead of saying words like help, they'll use assist guide or lend a hand, Little things like that. And let's say we're even making outbound prospecting. A lot of people are concerned about gatekeepers and filters. To me, I think they're the greatest people. We like to do positive escalations. So where if I speak to somebody and then I get transferred to you, I will say verbally how amazing this individual was.
And also do certain things in writing. If you get that at a call center, you can get money and prizes for it. That's how they get bonuses out. Wow. But if you call certain businesses, churches, schools, organizations, or even friends and family, And you mention others, you give the gift of a positive escalation.
They're gonna be happy that you call back. They'll give you information on how to close a deal or a company culture, right? And so instead of just going in there and trying to sell Donnie a 1995 book, it's very important for us to build rapport, to do a little bit more due diligence on your LinkedIn profile, on your podcast episodes, or your website.
So if I have to leave you a voice, or an email, I can custom make it. Mm. And that's only going to separate us from thousands of people that are knocking on your door trying to get sales. Now, not every time we make a call, we get a sale, right? But I increase our percentages by being on the phone longer, by asking more questions and knowing more people in your organization that I can refer to, that added momentum in my sales.
So it's not like what you see in the movie. We're not the Wolf of Wall Street, Glen Gary, Glen Ross Boer, and there are a lot of call centers that do that. I could personally do that if I wanted to, but I once again have chosen a certain environment where the profiled agent is something that not only the client could be comfortable with, but the agent would feel comfortable making those calls.
And so owning a company, if I try to force a fit, someone may not come back. They might. And you're only as good as the foundation that you have. That's it. And so it's, it's extremely important just to have that sort of sweet spot and balance for the client and for the agent. So it meshes in that it works because as I say before, if nobody shows up at your Chucky cheese birthday party, You have no friends,
Yeah. I'm just not gonna break you. So as a business owner, I'm constantly looking for ways for you to master levels and to crack some codes and to get better. But I, I, I just can't, You let you become complacent and, and, um, Monotonous and, and board on the phone where you just go through the motions.
That's, that's, as I say, you become plastic. Yes. Yes. And there's nothing that's, uh, raw about you anymore. And, and that's a shame when people get into that sort of trap.
Louisiana Country Boy: Most definitely. You know, and what I, what I hear originally I'll say this, is that you're not building a, a company. You have built a culture.
Mm-hmm. . Um, and that's, that's, you know, and that's a lot of people. It's, it's, that's how you can call it. , that, that's how people can say CC is home. It it because you built a culture. You, you, you. They're not just employees. They're not just people that work here. This is like a family and these are people that you know sometimes and, and I, you know, just doing what I do and learning that and, and working for others.
Some places you can work and it's just a job. Some places you can be and it's, and it's a home because you feel. Not excluded. Not like, Oh, well this is just a person over there that just does this over here. But they are, you look at them and everything that you've said and just talking to you. These are, these are what we forget to call people, humans.
I
Richard Blank: take stuff further. You remember our favorite class in school was recess. I have a gamification culture here. I collect pinball machines and juke boxes and Oh wow. machines. I have a neutral environment, Donny, where people can go down and meet agents from other departments, let off steam recharge batteries.
Hang out with me. Because if you're having a cigarette outside or on your phone on Instagram, you're by yourself. Right. But this is a very social environment and these games are older than they are . It's so important that they, That they have fun. Yes. And that there is a work life balance that's essential.
Louisiana Country Boy: Yeah. And that's great. That's great. Cause you know, and, and I know, fortunately for me, that makes you want to get up and go because you're looking, you're excited to get there. Like, man, I can't wait to get there. Um, I hear so today and, and, you know, in so many different places how people just be like, uh, gotta go.
Because it's, for me, when they say that, it's because of the culture. There hasn't been a, a, a positive culture. There's no positive. Feedback there. There's nothing positive and, and they're not a part of it. They're just an employee. When, when you change that whole scope around, oh man, you have you, you have done it, you, you have, you have put your hands on the crystal ball again.
You have made people understand like, we are in this, this ain't just me. You know what you just said. There's not a lot of places that genuine. I can go with the CEO and, and you know, he's right there and we can have a conversation. And it's not like, Oh dad, you know, what is
Richard Blank: work? Right? And a lot of the times, my friends, something outside of the office could be affecting their performance here.
They're not robots, they're not expendable numbers as you were talking earlier where people aren't even known at an office. And so, um, I have to take that into consideration because sometimes people have moments. Yes, but my favorite is when they bring their family along, a wife or a husband or their mother or father.
And I'll go downstairs and they have to pull me away cuz I'm gonna be telling them for 10 minutes how amazing their son is. And that's just a gift that keeps on giving. And I'm not just saying he's great. I'll give five examples cuz I care. Right? I know about phone calls. He makes a two year anniversary, what he did last week.
I pay attention to these small things because they claim that I, that people don. , but you and I notice these little details
Louisiana Country Boy: Yes. That, that make a difference. And that's, I'm telling you that is if, if, if, if there's any business owners out there that might not hear what we are talking about mm-hmm. , if you want to retain and grow, if you, I'm gonna say it again.
If you want to retain and grow mm-hmm. , these are the things coming from O employee and coming from a ceo. Mm. These things right here. I'm telling you, you would have the happiest people there. They would break down the door just to come work for you what you know. And that, I think that that here is why so many people decided, you know, with, Oh, I'm not going back to work.
Or when the pandemic thing, they didn't want to go back. They gonna go out and do they own thing because they felt so mistreated or they felt so de. They don't, they don't value me. I'm just, But when you, again, that's just me, You know? That's just my old family when, when it's like this and, and we are, and we can have a conversation and what you just said, those things, Well, I know anniversaries, I know birthday, I know these things and, and I can sit and talk to 'em and I can talk to their family.
When you can do that, that means that, that you have said, this is. Well,
Richard Blank: these are people as well. They don't need to sell their soul for a dollar. They have options. They don't need to go to an environment like that. But let's address something for a second here. I, I might create the greatest office environment ever, but there is a natural attrition that happens here.
Amazon's in Costa Rica, hpn, Tele, Andor. There's a hundreds of call centers. Right. So I compete especially against the big boys. So Donnell will lose somebody from time to time for scheduling conflict. If they go to the university, their boyfriend or girlfriend may work there. It might be closer to their home, or sometimes it even pays more.
There's different types of vocations here, right? But the one thing that they will not do, and you'll definitely appreciate this, they're not gonna say, Richard defaced me, insulted me, made me do the walk of shame. Yelled at me. No, no, no. That just doesn't happen. And I, I'm okay with that. As long as somebody is here and we can walk together and grow together, that's great.
I, I sometimes get a two weeks notice. Sometimes they just piece out on me. The next thing you know, I gotta call my client with a solution, which is fine, because if you can work through minor. Issues with a client, they see how you act during tough times. Yes. And how it is during good times. And so that, that just solidifies the relationships with my clients.
But I get disappointed from time to time. People I expected a little more from just disappear or they become a fading flower because this industry does, does create burnout. And in the United States, people look a certain way towards telemarketers and call center work. And for me, I was a gladia that not only survived it, but I thrived in this industry, in my own.
So go figure, . I saw the art and the speech. Yes. I saw the vocabulary and the delivery and I thought it was incredible if people were able to have that sort of conversations and convert sales site on. , there is an art to it, and as long as you practice that craft, I mean the, the earnings are, are, your potential is just limitless.
You could do very
Louisiana Country Boy: well. Hey, that is, that, that is definitely, definitely amazing. You know, I I, and again, Richard, I, I applaud you. I, I keep applauding you for just your.
My Worthless 2cents Table Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Donnie Lewis-The Louisiana Country Boy- discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
A place to freely express our thoughts and feelings where your worthless 2cents is priceless sharing our journey with each other,and always remember “Your Approval Not Needed “
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/mKnzAfDDx7k
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://youtu.be/xdxLRZ0K440
https://youtu.be/1USx0n2RMoQ
https://youtu.be/_nEDb7cvu_A
https://youtu.be/O2jukpEruYQ
https://youtu.be/ZgI2PGn1EDQ
https://youtu.be/7gZ1e2vgLKg
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6g8yr6ltjMRm2HZlL5NoFf
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14867186/my-worthless-2cents-table-is-with-richar
Mastering Spanish before moving to Costa Rica. Table Talk My Worthless 2 Cents guest Richard Blank
Louisiana Country Boy: If you don't, if you don't want to go in the deep, So I mean, actually, how was it, you know, making the transition? Was it, was it difficult for you? I mean, you know, I don't like to ask questions, but I don't know. I mean, was it, was it a difficult thing or did you go like, you know what, I feel comfortable with what I'm about to do.
I'm about to make this step and this is, I'm led to do this and, and this is at peace. That's it. You were just at peace with your decision. Um, and never thought about turning.
Richard Blank: I was taking it a day at a time. It was only supposed to last two months. So being here 22 years is really a godsend. But let, let's look at it a couple different ways logically.
The first thing is I, I mastered Spanish before coming to Costa Rica, so that transition was very easy for me. I could James Bond it all day long. Yeah. Secondly, I knew that I was a guest in this country, so I wasn't the loud foreigner. I wasn't expecting certain things, and I had a lot of. Keeping an open-mindedness for a new culture and tradition.
That made it easy for me because a lot of things that you hold dear in Louisiana and Philadelphia don't mean anything here, So you don't have that home court advantage. You need to show who you are and that essence and, and also, I wasn't looking for trouble. I wasn't licking my thumb and counting dollars on the side of the.
Right. I wasn't being insulting to taxi drivers of the locals. I wasn't throwing trash on the ground or being rude. So there wasn't no sort of violence, right. Or any sort of aggression. Or, or pressure naturally I stand out. I'm a, you know, we call me a Blanco, I'm an extra arrow. I look like I'm from the United States, no matter how and, and I never really volunteer my Spanish initially, depending on the situation.
Cuz I just wanna see the good faith, right? And I let them assume that I don't speak Spanish, so at least I use that to my advantage. You have to do certain things strategically, right? I don't keep the earbuds in. I'm looking around the street. I'm not paranoid. Uh, you know, I'm astute. I'm looking around.
This is not a game. I'm 3000 miles away from you and my mother, and so I, I need to take this seriously. Right? And so I was really kinda like, if you're getting through the desert, I could look in the direction of where I was going, but if you're not looking at your feet, you could sprain an ankle. You're dead.
And so I was really taking it a day at a time just to make sure I was getting positive reinforc. Acclimating Well, cost of living was good, so there wasn't pressure there earning very good money, and so my friend, a lot of things just kind of fell into place to make it easier. Now, I'm, I'm telling you the end result of it.
Trust me, there are certain times where, you know, I needed to really use my resources here to make my life comfortable. There's certain things you can do. There are local people that will assist you cut a certain line if you know somebody or get things done quicker. You know, there's a lot of red tape here with the government.
So if you have accountants and attorneys, your life can be a lot easier too, and I prefer that. And, um, but I, I guess I just didn't want the United States rat race. I could have done it, but I didn't want it. Right. And so at 27 years old, I put up the white flag and said, You can have. Let me just see if I could do something else, and fortunately, This paid off and I just didn't know.
But that's what makes life exciting. That's it. Who wants to have things planned out like school or camp? You, you really wanna have a zig and a zza every now and again and a and a mix up because it keeps it exciting. And you and I were talking earlier, it's not really about what happens to you, it's how you react to what happens to you.
And the more that even though things could. difficult. Mm-hmm. , when I can look back at it and realize that I handled myself in a certain way with good faith, yes, and with good intentions. My good friend, I can live with myself. And those are the sort of personal. Positive reinforcements that let me know that I was doing the right thing and to keep doing.
It's not for everybody. And trust me, Costa Rica is gorgeous. I don't iberia, I'm not gonna stay there for 22 years. So, um, but it's nice. It's a good cocktail. Story to tell people and and a lot of my friends from Philadelphia, when they see me and they've done exceptionally well, they've all said, Richard, I wish I tried my own adventure.
Not specifically mine, right? But all of them had something in them that they always want at least test or try before the kids, the career, the mortgage, the pressures, right? Just to take a bite outta life just to see what it tastes like. And for me, I guess it was being a little selfish. I just. . I was a romantic.
I wanted to see what could happen in this beautiful hundred years that I have. Mm. And so that's why you see me so smiling. Right now. I have a luxury trade. I married the girl, my dreams, and I'm on a podcast with a
Louisiana Country Boy: mine.
You know? And you know, but I'll say it is wonderful. It is wonderful. And you did it. You, you walked out on again, I say that you, you know, you climbed. Uh, you didn't allow the things, whatever it may have been, whether it was this whole thing, you know, that's the worst one. This whole thing in between these old heels right here telling you don't, do you, You didn't listen to that.
You know, You didn't go like, Okay, well this is the box. I gotta be in this box. You didn't and may I, I, I applaud that and that's what I tell, I say to anybody, That's what you should do. Um, no, they can't be a Richard and they can't be a Louisiana country worker. We already taken. Uh, but they can be who they are.
And man, I applaud you for what you're doing and going there and, and, and staying and sticking with it. And, because I'm sure that old thing in between here again, say you need to come on back home now. You need to go on back many a times. But you said no. Mm-hmm. . Well, yes
Richard Blank: and no. You kind of live it now.
Prior to coming here, I. W besides the schooling, Imagine the sort of work I did with the Spanish outside of the classroom, with the movies and the reading and the writing and the, and the practice. So you wield your sword. You are prepared for this. Yes. And if you live it, then it's really just a natural progression.
This was my destiny, my friend. It had to be done.
Louisiana Country Boy: That is, that is, that is, You know, I, I'll say this, What you. And I tell everybody, this is what, what you should always do. You walked in purpose. On purpose. Mm-hmm. and, And people miss that. You know, some people know when you walk in purpose, on purpose, everything that's purposed for you, you get.
You walk into your destiny, that's the only way you can walk into your destiny. You have to do it in purpose. On purpose. You, you ain't gonna trip into your destiny. You ain't gonna just back bow into it. No, no, no. It requires something from us. It requires what you did and you did it. I mean, you did it. Um, and, and again, like I say, man, I, I applaud you for it.
I applaud you. I applaud you. For, for being able to just come here and, and, and, and share, like, you know, to tell the story about it. You know, this is not okay. Lemme say that. Look here, y'all, this man right here was not born in Costa Rica. Oh. I don't know. I don't know if y'all missed it. He was not born in Costa Rica.
He took the steps before he went, He said he learned Spanish. Okay. He took the, Okay. That's, that's that thing, right? He took the steps. He was walking up, parked up here. I need to do something outside the box. This is what I'm gonna do if I want to go here, then this is what? See, when you got to Costa Rica, my opinion, I don't know, You had everything in your toolbox already that you needed to fix, whatever it was.
Richard Blank: I wish you was shining brighter than I've ever done in my entire life since that first. And I never did tell a marketing before I got on the phone.
My Worthless 2cents Table Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Donnie Lewis-The Louisiana Country Boy- discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
A place to freely express our thoughts and feelings where your worthless 2cents is priceless sharing our journey with each other,and always remember “Your Approval Not Needed “
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/_nEDb7cvu_A
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://youtu.be/xdxLRZ0K440
https://youtu.be/1USx0n2RMoQ
https://youtu.be/O2jukpEruYQ
https://youtu.be/mKnzAfDDx7k
https://youtu.be/ZgI2PGn1EDQ
https://youtu.be/7gZ1e2vgLKg
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6g8yr6ltjMRm2HZlL5NoFf
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14867186/my-worthless-2cents-table-is-with-richar
Richard Blank: Enhanced communication.
Joe Killinger: Yeah. I You get it. Um, who is your, What does your typical client look like?
Richard Blank: Well, there's two types. Okay. It could be someone like yourself in the United States that needs to scale, and sometimes it's difficult to find qualified individuals that will meet your requirements in the states.
Richard Blank: Yep. Otherwise, individuals might not have the resources. We do, like I was mentioning earlier, manual dialing to predictive dial. Quality assurance department, human resources department supervisors, in my experience. So a lot of the times my consulting could enhance their, uh, I guess plug in place system.
Richard Blank: Mm-hmm. . Cause I can log into your crm. I could even log into your phone system. Yeah. But once again, by using my dialer and other sort of resources we have, we can almost just enhance what you have. And then other companies use us for overflow. Like if they have a dedicated workforce and their queue gets filled, then calls will come into our department too.
Richard Blank: But I always believe if we're on a level playing field and we're given all the resources as corporate, I have on multiple occasions be able to match and exceed expectations. Yeah. And that's why I'm able to earn these seats. But my ideal client would be someone that would first ask me about the labor laws.
Richard Blank: Just to make sure that everything is followed perfectly. Yeah. And the second thing is to judge me on merit, not on price. Because offshore centers in the Philippine and India obviously have much more. Competitive pricing. Sure. And then finally, metrics. I would like realistic expectations. And you asked me earlier about how many calls somebody could do.
Richard Blank: I was mentioning the dialer. I understand reverse psychology, but if you could only make 10 calls an hour, six minute calls, you can't expect me to do 15 or 20. I can't expand time. But you are mentioning manual dialing, I'm talking predictive dialing, and my backend structure. There may be a chance, Joe, that I could do 50% more an hour and recuperate those costs and earn those seeds, but it's really more for somebody to have an open mind.
Richard Blank: A lot of the times they have made phone calls before, but there are things they haven't experienced yet, and so just by me, as you say, listening first and one by one reviewing with them. They don't have enough numbers to call. I need some more rebuttals. You don't have an email template. No one's answering when I try to do a hotly transfer.
Richard Blank: Mm-hmm. , these are certain ways to see if they qualify for me. Gotcha. I just wanna make sure I fulfill the agents' needs, right?
Joe Killinger: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So are you focused mostly on mid, uh, single agents or midlevel companies or large companies for all of the above?
Richard Blank: Oh, pretty much all of the above. All the above. And so we're half and half.
Richard Blank: We do 50% inbound, non-voice and customer support, and then the other half does appointment setting lead generation in some. Okay,
Joe Killinger: well, I'm gonna make sure we have your website in the bottom of this video so people can reach out to you. Talk about pricing. I don't, we don't wanna get into it now, I don't think, but they'll definitely be able to reach out to you and, um, you know, this, this was amazing.
Joe Killinger: I appreciate all the information. Thanks. I'm gonna have to go write some of this down. Actually. I'm gonna, I'm gonna utilize that and so thank you for coming on today.
Richard Blank: The pleasure is mine. Thank you for spending the time with me today.
Real Estate Jam Session Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Joe Killinger discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Joe Killinger has been an active member in the real estate industry for many years, wearing different hats, and at times multiple hats! Over the years he has been an Agent, Investor, Syndicator, Founder and Operator of companies as well as properties he invests in. His expertise has been developed over the past 30 years. During that time he has been personally responsible for the sale of and/or directly involved in the marketing of over 5,900 assets, resulting in closed transactions totaling over 900 million dollars throughout the United States.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/n3QEVAlvv6o
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
A simple common sense approach to my phone calls. I sold a lot of sizzle. Real Estate Jam Session Podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
Richard Blank: don't be surprised if Joe's gonna be way too busy and it's gonna have to eat two lunches to get his energy back.
Joe Killinger: Yeah. It's, you know, as far as you know, sales people we're always taught, get the lead, get the deal, you know, get the appointment, You know, and I'm like, you, it's just kind of like, you know, it's a process, you know, you gotta have the process in place.
Richard Blank: You gotta do clean business. Yeah. You gotta properly represent yourself in the best light and, and there's no surprises with you, Joe, like as much as you'd like to give somebody a price or sell it with certain terms. Mm-hmm. , you're also realistic. And if you're able to have that sort of conversation with your clients, I think once again, they respect you that much more.
Joe Killinger: Yeah. I would bet that when you were doing residential, you knocked it outta the park, didn't you?
Richard Blank: I sold a lot of sizzle. I said, Unlike other people that are just boring you, I'm telling you, your house is great. Oh, I had the greatest phone calls with people. I bet you know what I got the most. I tell you, it used to be about 80% prospecting, 20% referrals.
Richard Blank: Yep. And it got 50 50. Yeah. And then it got about 20% prospecting, 30% callbacks, 50% referrals. And so I got passed around, which was wonderful. Yeah. And people realized that if I myself at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning or making prospecting calls to you, isn't that the sort of company you'd like to work with?
Richard Blank: And so it was very easy for me not to lie. I'm telling you the truth. I'm representing myself, introducing myself, and it's Sunday morning. I'm not hungover and I'm not on vacation. I'm, I would love to represent your home and, and why don't we have a, a meeting from this momentum that we have. I like you, Richard.
Richard Blank: Great. Put the checkbook away. I don't wanna sign who's talking about signing anything today. Mm-hmm. , what I, since obviously we have a momentum and we both know each other's names. Maybe the next step is to have Joe meet you and then from an educated point of view, then make a decision. But you're gonna love him , you know?
Richard Blank: And um, And it's being kind. Yeah, it's being nonthreatening. And they realized that, and maybe Joe, it's the way that you and I were raised by our parents and grandparents. We were taught to have certain manners. Yeah. And to respect other people's times. Yeah. And so by just taking that very simple common sense approach to my phone calls, I was not the real estate beast you thought I was.
Richard Blank: I was a very kind, non-threatening appointment set for my older brother who is the broker or for my clients now that are in the United States that are doing their business. So I was just the sell the sizzle. Come into the tent. Yep. Greatest.
Real Estate Jam Session Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Joe Killinger discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Joe Killinger has been an active member in the real estate industry for many years, wearing different hats, and at times multiple hats! Over the years he has been an Agent, Investor, Syndicator, Founder and Operator of companies as well as properties he invests in. His expertise has been developed over the past 30 years. During that time he has been personally responsible for the sale of and/or directly involved in the marketing of over 5,900 assets, resulting in closed transactions totaling over 900 million dollars throughout the United States.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/Dnt-4hwnfM4
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
Why you should listen more than you talk on the phone? Real Estate Jam Session Podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center
Joe Killinger: Richard is the, um, not listening. They're so busy. They've got somebody on the phone, they're trying to get everything out so fast and, but they're not listening to what the person on the other end is saying. And I just think that if you, you, you know, my, my father, it's amazing how the older I get, the smarter he gets it, just, you know, he goes, Joe, you've got two ears and one mouth.
Joe Killinger: He goes, Listen more than you talk. And he's right. He was right on, and I just am like in sales. That is something that you really have to take into consideration.
Richard Blank: So I have a follow up question to your statement there. Do your agents know your script by? A to Z, one to three. Do they know everything? No.
Joe Killinger: No, they don't.
Joe Killinger: They, you know, and depending on the personality, you know, we have so many different scripts, so most of them don't even really follow a script. They go by. What we try and teach is, you know, when somebody picks up the phone, you need to be listening to them and you know, kind of, I don't wanna say mirror, but understand how they're coming out of there.
Joe Killinger: You can tell right in the first few seconds how somebody is that day if they feel like they're bothered. But I mean, they do have scripts, don't get me wrong. And they have like three of 'em that they all play off of, but nobody has one of them memorized, I don't think. But it's, But that's fine.
Richard Blank: As you say that, they're well versed.
Richard Blank: They know they're subject well, yeah. And, and what I've seen happen multiple times is that they become plastic. Plastic to commercialize. They're not a painting, they're not raw. They're a character, not in character. That's why when your dog was barking, Joe, I asked what the dog's name was. Yeah. As a follow up question, or how many years have you been in this position, this promotion at your company?
Richard Blank: Now, congratulations on being ceo. How many years has it been, Joe? You know what? You know, where are you at right now? Yeah. And so when you say active listening to me, it's really more of an engagement. Because you're saying also as well that you might be upsetting somebody, but I'm telling you this, these are people you're meeting for the first time.
Richard Blank: I can't gauge the first round of the fight as I can on the 12th because things do change, like tug of war. It goes back and forth. There's a push in a bull. Yeah. But if I can. Match just your speed and how loud you go. Then there's no crosstalk or interruption cuz I'm really moving with you at your speed.
Richard Blank: But then I know when to interject to do the follow up. That's the active listening they need checkpoints. They need pauses. Do you remember the show gets smart when he was walking down the hallway and the doors were closing behind him? They're gonna leave. Yes, I do. Yo, my main man, you know, they're gonna leave a door open.
Richard Blank: So after 15 minutes they wonder why they didn't get the appointment. And all the client says is, Hey Joe, send me information. Yeah, no, because that's why when you gauge these people, you ask a follow up question to see if it makes sense or if it sounds good, I'd rather take a three second insurance policy.
Richard Blank: To ask you a tie down question, then to assume, which as you know, it makes an ass out of you and me and just keep moving forward for the fear of being hung up upon. And yeah, I believe in selling sizzle. So somebody has a beautiful building. I would love to take a look at it because when I was doing residential real estate, the MLS was a gold mine for me because you talk about the, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the sport court, the pool, the, the, the, the crown molding or even the curve appeal.
Richard Blank: And obviously it was the biggest glaring tell sign of what the people were most proud of. Oh yeah. And what they loved the most. And so I allowed through least resistance. It's called Woo Way. To, as you say, two on one. Listen, twice I know what I know. I need to know what Joe knows. Yeah. And so by me allowing you to ask these questions and, and me bringing you back in the conversation, don't be surprised if you not only can get everything out of it, but once again, they're probably gonna call you and tell you how great I was by setting the appointment.
Richard Blank: Mm-hmm. , that should be the goal of your staff. is to get that positive escalation when you call back Mrs. Jones to represent her property. Mm-hmm. and I always gave the most points on the call, Joe, when the client says your name. Yeah, I know you want a conversion and, and the scripts and, and I'm so proud of what you built.
Richard Blank: But to me, if they are not capable of having that sort of balanced, grounded in the moment. Sort of conversation where they are selling or buying one of the most expensive investments of their entire life. You have to put, it's almost like a vulnerable state for somebody. You really have to take that into consideration, and so instead of being a prospector, you're almost more of a consultant.
Richard Blank: Yeah, but you're not, Joe, The closer. That's not a problem at all. What I'm here to do today is to clarify for our edification additional things above and beyond your specs that Joe would need to know in order to be in the moment with you to move forward emotionally and to either purchase or let.
Richard Blank: Property go. So you're are such a good man in regards to the psychology, like someone's best friend or older brother, making sure I don't get in a fist fight and stay out of trouble. And Joe, that's why you get these accounts. I don't know if they could price shop around or give it to a family member, but you've closed a lot of deals of people you've met for the first time and these people once again are entrusting this in you.
Richard Blank: And so as much as I'm telling you before, there's no real secret sauce to this. If you show empathy, if you take an extra five minutes to speak with somebody when you're online with them, just start looking at the website and making compliments and asking how Eddie in the, in the mail rooms doing. Don't be surprised if Joe's gonna be way too busy and is gonna have to eat two lunches to get his energy back.
Joe Killinger: Yeah. It's, you know, as far as you know, sales people we're always taught, get the league, get the deal, you know, get the appointment, you know, and I'm like, you, it's just kind of like, you know, it's a process, you know, you gotta have the process in place.
Richard Blank: You gotta do clean business. Yeah. You gotta properly represent yourself in the best light and, And there's no surprises with you, Joe, like as much as you'd like to give somebody a price or sell it with certain terms.
Richard Blank: Mm-hmm. , you're also realistic. And if you're able to have that sort of conversation with your clients, I think once again, they respect you that much more. Yeah.
Joe Killinger: I would bet that when you were doing.
Real Estate Jam Session Podcast has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Joe Killinger discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Joe Killinger has been an active member in the real estate industry for many years, wearing different hats, and at times multiple hats! Over the years he has been an Agent, Investor, Syndicator, Founder and Operator of companies as well as properties he invests in. His expertise has been developed over the past 30 years. During that time he has been personally responsible for the sale of and/or directly involved in the marketing of over 5,900 assets, resulting in closed transactions totaling over 900 million dollars throughout the United States.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/sdL9DJOHz6o
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
What motivated you to get into the nearshore call center business? Positive Talk Radio guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center
It's because she, I have to ask. What motivated you to get into this business and to, and to really study it the way that you have so that you could pay it forward and impart your employees with some real success strategies, as well as your customers and your clients. They receive results because of the style with which you make the calls and the style with which you do.
So what motivat, what, what, what makes you different than everybody else that I've met? Well, the first thing is I wanted to find a job, so I didn't have to move back to the states. I live in paradise. I was gonna, I was almost gonna paint shells on the beach if I had to, but do they have snakes there?
excuse me. Do they have snakes there? Uh, they most certainly do. Oh, then I can't go. I'm sorry. I would wear big rubber boots if you're treking out into the rain forest, but, uh, nah, I think most places you'll be safe, but you know, where I really saw it is once again, for those four years in my late twenties, when I was sitting with the Costa Rican Ticos at the call center, as much as I was amazed by their bilingual abilities.
Conversations and positive escalations. I saw the tough side of the job I really did. And I needed to once again, find a way to make it efficient, but not to have them burned out and to keep their dignity. And so I really took it from the area of the language aspect. I really do encourage them to study the, the source.
So instead of using words like help, they can use guide, assist and lend to hand instead of telling somebody, excuse me, could you repeat that for my clarification? For my edification, Kevin, was it 1, 2, 3, or ABC? I teach 'em the fall on certain swords on a call. And so once again, if I can assist them in teaching them what the north American market is.
What our genres are certain vocabulary, certain styles. And I mean, if they wanna learn bad words, I'll teach 'em bad words, but that doesn't help anybody. I, I want them to be prepared so they could walk into a board room. Improperly represent themselves in their company, and that's been my goal. And through these years I've seen some incredible people and, and you're gonna love this.
The most I'll hire people with experience. They come in, they're hot. Sometimes they could be cancers. It depends on the person. I like the person more. That's got no experience at a call center. I mean, they're brilliant college educated bilingual, the whole shit bank. They just don't know what a phone system is or a headset who cares.
I can teach that an hour, but I love the fact that I could mold somebody and I can show them certain skills. And as long as they're coachable and they show up on time pen, the ready I am the first. To put, win in their sales and find as many ways as I can to promote them. And I'll delegate, even though they're not a supervisor, I'll let them write a script.
I'll let them do a training class. They can pull their hall of fame, call out and talk about it with 15 people. Why not to practice their public speaking, you know? And, and I always love making suggestions cuz no one makes a perfect phone call. So I don't think you're getting away with it. I will definitely find something to make a suggestion on.
And these are just building their own self reli. And self confidence. And I love seeing that with the people that work here with me. .
Positive Talk Radio has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Kevin McDonald discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
"Evolving Ideas One Conversation At A Time"
Positive Talk Radio podcast was originally started in 2003 by Kevin McDonald and friends on KKNW 1150 AM in Seattle with great guests, dynamic stories and interviews, plus new thoughts on a wide range of topics. The concept is to provide positive informative content designed to educate, entertain, empower and inspire all who listen Our content includes positive thoughts and idea's and is truly unique in the podcast industry and now again on KKNW 1150 AM on Monday's at 9 and Wednesdays at 4 pm pacific.
Kevin McDonald - Creator and Host. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington. This jovial fun loving man experienced life in a big way from star athlete, to actor, Voice Actor, Restaurateur, Sales and Sales Management, Transit Operator, Audio Producer, Talk Show Host, Creative Consultant, Motivational Leader and current podcast creator. (My Independence Report) Who’s mission is to Declare Our Freedom From Hate, Division and Fear, featuring positive motivational guest, music interviews and fun episodes. KM Media.pro is the parent site for, Positive Talk Radio. We are a live podcast/ Video cast that focuses on todays life challenges. In addition we are able to produce audio/ video products for other companies and people looking to find a voice in the crowded world of podcast journalism
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/r1diLQXrrkQ
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://positivetalkradio.podbean.com/e/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1736657096686275
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/guests/richard-blank/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/208-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-center/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/160-richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/positive-talk-radio-3982674/episodes/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingl-141119081
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-positive-talk-radio-87062639/episode/richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-100280727/
How difficult is it to use English as a second language? Positive Talk Radio guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center
How difficult is it to get the lingo of, um, American English from Spanish? The, the words are said differently and stuff. How difficult is it to, to use English as a second language? Well, most of these individuals, once again, have been speaking English since they were very young, but I, I have a trick for that.
There there's a couple different things. If they don't know certain slang, instead of saying the beach, you might call it the. You know, I need to teach them that, but I would like for them to write out specific words, phonetically, because they might have issues in regards to their vowels, just in regards to the phonetics.
I want them to learn how to spell it, but if they want to, you know, give themselves a little cheat sheet on how to pronounce certain words correctly, or my clients will offer us, um, you know, glossary of terms and certain sort of definitions, or even a training manual. To, I guess, onboard them a lot quicker in regards to industries, because we, we're not really the experts.
Sometimes we're just doing more of lead generation, like real estate. For an example, these agents might not be real estate brokers, but they can still call people and prospect them without a license legally and be able to transfer the call. So they don't need to walk through escrow in contracts, but there's no reason why they can't ask somebody how many bedrooms they have and what sort of sport court they have in the backyard.
And so, as I say before with my client, There needs to be some extreme, realistic expectations on what the agent's capable of doing. And so I just wanna make sure that there's a good fit.
Positive Talk Radio has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Kevin McDonald discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
"Evolving Ideas One Conversation At A Time"
Positive Talk Radio podcast was originally started in 2003 by Kevin McDonald and friends on KKNW 1150 AM in Seattle with great guests, dynamic stories and interviews, plus new thoughts on a wide range of topics. The concept is to provide positive informative content designed to educate, entertain, empower and inspire all who listen Our content includes positive thoughts and idea's and is truly unique in the podcast industry and now again on KKNW 1150 AM on Monday's at 9 and Wednesdays at 4 pm pacific.
Kevin McDonald - Creator and Host. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington. This jovial fun loving man experienced life in a big way from star athlete, to actor, Voice Actor, Restaurateur, Sales and Sales Management, Transit Operator, Audio Producer, Talk Show Host, Creative Consultant, Motivational Leader and current podcast creator. (My Independence Report) Who’s mission is to Declare Our Freedom From Hate, Division and Fear, featuring positive motivational guest, music interviews and fun episodes. KM Media.pro is the parent site for, Positive Talk Radio. We are a live podcast/ Video cast that focuses on todays life challenges. In addition we are able to produce audio/ video products for other companies and people looking to find a voice in the crowded world of podcast journalism
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/n6ZLdR0lwD4
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://positivetalkradio.podbean.com/e/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1736657096686275
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/guests/richard-blank/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/208-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-center/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/160-richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/positive-talk-radio-3982674/episodes/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingl-141119081
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-positive-talk-radio-87062639/episode/richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-100280727/
A certain circle to handle call center stress. Positive Talk Radio guest Richard Blank Costa Rica's Call Center.
It it's a it's remarkable, isn't it? Um, it is. I had, um, when I was a general manager of a restaurant in Seattle, mm-hmm we had what we called the Mexican pipeline. Okay. And one of the, one of the guys that was working as a bus boy for me at, for 40 hours a week, and then he had another job working 40 hours a week.
And he was a, he had been a principal in Mexico of, of a high school, but he found that to support his. Which is, this goes back to the eighties, but to support his family, he needed to, uh, work a 40 hour job to pay for his living expenses. And then he worked the other job and sent that paycheck home. Okay.
So he was actually supporting his mom, his dad, his little sister and stuff, because he could make that here. And, uh, um, and so he worked, they work incredibly hard and, and they're used to working hard and I think that's. that's true. And, and burnout is big in call centers and rotation and attrition. And so once again, I, I make sure that when people are here, they have their job stability and they can recharge their battery.
So when they leave the office, they can confront any sort of challenges that they have. So it's a certain circle. So when they come back to work again, they're ready to go. And. Once again, if, if somebody's having a tough day, I will pull them aside off, off the floor. Um, put a little water on their face and get 'em to relax a little bit and to refocus and reset themselves because you and I have been in those shoes.
I never walked in as a sea level executive. I worked in my friend's center for four years, so I got to see the gripes, the good and the bad times, and, and really learn this business from the inside. And. And I got to see what I could do to enhance the experience for the agents and for the clients. And I could grow a lot faster, Kevin, but I'm very selective of the campaigns that come in.
I I'd rather fulfill the needs of the agent before the client, because if they're not comfortable with the account, they're just not gonna wanna do it. Hey, if.
Positive Talk Radio has accepted Richard Blank's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Kevin McDonald discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
"Evolving Ideas One Conversation At A Time"
Positive Talk Radio podcast was originally started in 2003 by Kevin McDonald and friends on KKNW 1150 AM in Seattle with great guests, dynamic stories and interviews, plus new thoughts on a wide range of topics. The concept is to provide positive informative content designed to educate, entertain, empower and inspire all who listen Our content includes positive thoughts and idea's and is truly unique in the podcast industry and now again on KKNW 1150 AM on Monday's at 9 and Wednesdays at 4 pm pacific.
Kevin McDonald - Creator and Host. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington. This jovial fun loving man experienced life in a big way from star athlete, to actor, Voice Actor, Restaurateur, Sales and Sales Management, Transit Operator, Audio Producer, Talk Show Host, Creative Consultant, Motivational Leader and current podcast creator. (My Independence Report) Who’s mission is to Declare Our Freedom From Hate, Division and Fear, featuring positive motivational guest, music interviews and fun episodes. KM Media.pro is the parent site for, Positive Talk Radio. We are a live podcast/ Video cast that focuses on todays life challenges. In addition we are able to produce audio/ video products for other companies and people looking to find a voice in the crowded world of podcast journalism
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/1zg_XgAvrp0
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
https://positivetalkradio.podbean.com/e/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/191-richard-blank-chief-executive-officer/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1736657096686275
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/guests/richard-blank/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/208-richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-call-center/
https://www.positivetalkradio.net/160-richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingly-gifted-business-man/
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/positive-talk-radio-3982674/episodes/richard-blank-ceo-and-amazingl-141119081
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-positive-talk-radio-87062639/episode/richard-blank-ceo-of-costa-ricas-100280727/
Michael Neuendorff: How, how do you, how do you develop sales? People who are relatively green to become someone that is effective at following your methods and processes? That, what, what, what do you look for in salespeople to know that I'm working with someone who could be great?
Michael? Those are my favorite agents to.
I can mold them. They're not coming in with bad habits. They're coming in bilingual, which shows such education for them. I get to be their first coach, if it's their first call center, telemarketing job, but let's go through it in three stages. If we may, the first one is the psychological stage. I have to let them know that fear is a morbid anticipation of something that hasn't happened yet.
Just in my own instance, just by these agents being bilingual and myself, once again, it shows dedication and structure. So they've done something very difficult. If I can properly prepare them and put them on a level playing field with all of the resources, such as a proper script. Rebuttals training in the CRM, in the system, how to use their phone system, doing quality assurance, which is QA support, where we go through, we call them KPIs, which are key performance indicators.
So we can just see their consistency. Trust me, everybody. It's a test. You can easily pass. The points that I give are for the soft skills. We just judge you to ask their email address and mention your information. I don't do that. I, I concentrate on the ACEs. I, I expect you to do that. That's what I'm paying you to do.
Richard Blank: What I want you to do when you're in class is to once again, relax and realize that this could be something that could pay more than most vocations. And the fact that you have a Thor. And you should expand your vocabulary. So instead of using words like help, my suggestion would be to use in this specific order would be assist guide or lend a hand, same message, different delivery.
You're being more strategic on this. You're being a little more clever. You don't once again, need to say, I'm sorry. It's for my clarification. So once I expand their vocabulary, just with work words, and then they go home and learn additional words cuz they're just so into it. And so what happens then, then you start connecting people together.
So you have a certain sort of buddy system or unlike myself, who's the owner of the company telemarketer. When you have somebody that shine. Let them work with the local Costa Ricans in their own language, knowing their culture. It's very important for me that people get promoted here from within, and I'm able to delegate certain responsibilities.
Now you're talking about a new guy. But if the kid shows up on time, front row center takes notes, role plays participates, just a great all around kid. You don't think I'm gonna want him to stand up on Wednesday and do a little bit of the class just for fun to build his confidence, love kids like that, have to do things like that.
And they will make sure that the people that work with them break bread with them, know each other's names. And you just don't say, good job. What do you saying? Good job. Let them specifically know you listen to a call or let them know, thank you for your one year anniversary with us. I must be doing something right, because Amazon, Oracle, Intel, and HP they're here.
I compete against the big boys, but guess what? They don't play pinball with their people. They don't train their people personally, like I do. They're not selective of sometimes the campaigns that they choose, just to make sure that people feel comfortable with the sort of training that they have and the preparation.
And so that's why I believe that this smaller sort of company that I have is why certain people gravitate towards this. It may not be for everybody. Some people just wanna lose themselves in thousands of people. But those that work for smaller call centers can make a very, very good name for themselves.
Very fast. Yeah.
Michael Neuendorff: Excellent.
Build and Balance Show has accepted Richard's invitation to join the audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Michael Neuendorff discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Build and Balance is dedicated to serving salespeople with 0 - 5 years of experience; and anyone who wants to improve their public speaking skills. Michael Neuendorff been in sales and marketing for more than 20 years and know what it's like to start out in sales. Michael has 25+ years of sales and marketing experience; extensive team building and leadership experience; teaching, training and mentoring experience and a proven ability to think creatively and listen deeply. Michael was a marketing director at Oracle Corporation, and an assistant manager of direct marketing at Softbank Forums. Michael has also been a top inside sales manager and a private English instructor in Tokyo.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. 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://youtu.be/bcX13KGnqYI
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
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