https://youtu.be/O6ayksYkwKM?si=4iandqsMp04DlGHT

https://youtu.be/-eU4zIc8Bfw

Pam Prior, the Entrepreneur's CFO Quarterback; Radio Host; CEO of Priorities Group, Inc.; and #1 Bestselling Author of "Your First CFO: The Accounting Cure for Small Business Owners"

Pam Prior, Keynote Speaker, 

Host of the "Cash Flow" Podcast  

Awesome Podcast GUEST (Serving YOUR audience)

Founder, Profit Concierge® Financial Services

THE VIP Bookkeeping🧾 and FInancial Services Solution for Entrepreneurs

#1 Author of "Your First CFO: The Accounting Cure for Small Business Owners"

CEO of Priorities Group, Inc.

And - just for fun - a 30-year finance career in Fortune 50 and Private Equity 

prior (get it?) to all this fun stuff

Proud Mom, Wife, Friend, Entrepreneur, and 

Dog Owner (3 of 'em) living near Philadelphia, PA

A brilliant, down to earth, finance wrangler

who guides you on the path to confident control of your money mindset and business cash flow. Pam knows what you need to understand, and she cuts out the rest. You don’t need to BE a bookkeeper (though you might need to hire one! We’ll talk); you need to understand a specific set of numbers and how they shape your business. She meets you where you are and takes you where you want to go with no unnecessary, complicated terminology or lingo.

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. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level.

Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies.

We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry.

https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/

#RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #smallbusinesschronicles #snacknlearn

snack n learn,, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer,

https://youtu.be/O6ayksYkwKM?si=4iandqsMp04DlGHT

https://youtu.be/-eU4zIc8Bfw

thank you for watching snack and learn

hosted by pam pryor

[Music]

everybody welcome to tuesday and for our

very first snack and learn

with somebody who is living in costa

rica and i cannot wait to introduce you

to richard blank

there is so much i want to cover with

him that i don't know how we're going to

compress it into half an hour so i've

had to kind of hand pick my topics but

let me give you a little background and

just to introduce richard and then i'm

going to let him uh give us a little bit

of his own perspective on things as well

but

richard's journey is actually in the

call center space and it's had a ton of

twists and turns in it so

the long and short of is it is that when

he after a bunch of academic work he

returned when he was 27 years old to

costa rica to train some employees for

one of the really large call centers in

san jose and he's

effectively never come back i'm sure i'm

overstating it but that's sort of the

feel for it when you meet him you're

going to get to know why this is really

really interesting he's the chief

executive officer for costa rica's call

center and he's been that since 2008

he's got all sorts of commendations

all sorts of educational background that

would just blow your mind

and

the things that i want to really hit him

up about have nothing to do with

academics and degrees because he's

fascinating to talk to i want to talk to

him today about costa rica itself i want

to talk to him about gamification

how to get employee employees engaged in

your company

and then micro expressions i love the

idea of phonetic micro expression

reading and this man comes to the table

with some stuff he's really learned and

put together around that so without any

more hoopla richard welcome to snack and

learn how are you

pam i'm so happy to be here today cannot

wait to have a few snacks

learn a few things then share some ideas

with you and your amazing audience is

that a candy machine speaking of snacks

that i see over your shoulder there

absolutely that's the private vip

machine in my office there's tons of

candy on the floor but now here's all

you can eat pam

well unfortunately i've got to wait till

my knee recovery everybody knows why i'm

showing up in my lounge chair these days

and it's just because i'm still working

on the knee recovery but i would uh take

all the candy in the world if i were

actually getting a lot more motion these

days

so give us a little you know your

perspective on that background and how

it's brought you particularly to

call center work

gamification

really understanding company culture and

how to make it work well

and micro expression reading

so much to go over and assure you no

we'll definitely get it done

originally from northeast philadelphia

and so when i graduated abington high

school in 91 instead of going to law and

medicine and ivy league i chose to go to

the university of arizona and double

down on my favorite class which was

recess second favorite spanish so uh at

arizona i was a spanish communication

major i interned for telemundo during

college sold beer for the importers of

corona postgrad

nice 27 i had a one in a million

opportunity pam to come

work at my friend's call center for just

a couple months in costa rica and teach

english well

that wasn't me for four and i learned

the business from the inside and out and

the next thing you know a couple years

later i started my own call center

wow and bait is it based in costa rica

or is that just one of your branches oh

i wish i had multiple branches now we

just got one 300 seat capacity call

center here

in costa rica and i tell you what

entering the business not as a c-level

executive but with the proletariat i was

able to break bread with them and sit

next to them in cubicles and really get

a chance to see what the business is

like from the inside and out

and i learned that empathy and dignity

go a long way especially in this

industry to reduce attrition and to get

people to really invest in it more of a

career than just a transitional job

probably

if they are applying it to their calls

with their success rates as well

of course but there's structure to it

you just can't have a rogue agent going

out there people do have experience and

in call centers we have a quality

control department so we gauge you on

kpis and metrics you have scripts and

rebuttals and there's also ways to train

in regards to delivery and semantics

word choice but if you can master the

art of speech which you have them then

obviously relationships are much better

you can convert phone calls retain

clients

and just do it your stuff is your stuff

mostly cold outbound calling is that or

is it following up on collections or is

it for entrepreneurs looking for you

know call sales teams that kind of thing

what do you focus on we have a lot of

entrepreneurs in the group who i'm sure

got their ears perked up wondering

and for your audience we handle

everything from outbound calls for sales

appointment setting legion

we also do inbound customer support and

non-voice back office support my

suggestion for your audience

is to not only communicate

just with omni channel non-voice support

where if you're just doing chats and

emails it's very frustrating and clients

don't like that you could lose a client

not get an upsell referral or potential

exit interview so if you are capable of

having this live interpersonal

communication with prospective clients

and existing clients

you have a much better business

awesome and then you also do lead gen

yes ma'am

the cold call to get you know narrow it

down to do the conversion and all of

that well i can get through gatekeepers

easily there's a trick to it it's called

positive escalation first you understand

their protocol i'll mention their name

and before being transferred to you pam

i will definitely let that individual

know how amazing they were and when i do

get transit i'll be mentioning it pam

i'll mention your associates verbally

and i'll also do it in writing and so if

you see if i call your company back

people will remember me and add to my

momentum or it shows good faith prior to

any sort of contracts

i love this so let me ask you a question

do you also do things like for example

what we do here is a lot of calling to

get on podcasts

okay

so if we had a list or maybe we don't

have lists maybe you have a list of 100

podcasts does your call center do that

kind of work as well we would be capable

of making those phone calls absolutely

it's not just sales it's also kind of pr

work for people getting them that

getting them into a podcast helping

write the scripts for the people to make

those calls that kind of thing sure we

can custom make any sort of campaign

we're very versatile the agents that we

have here i you know we're very

selective of the campaigns that come in

it's a strict catholic country so the

agents it is a seller's market they

would choose to make those calls and

feel comfortable with it but yeah let's

say you never even made those calls

before i'm very capable

of writing scripts and doing rebuttals

and and working on email templates and

voicemail templates

that's awesome because a lot of people

don't know like myself included i don't

know how to approach a podcast person

and build the relationship the right way

i mean i do know how to do it the long

and slow way and i can maybe work on

five at a time like that listen to their

podcast add value to them

um get to know them a little bit and

then ultimately get an invitation to be

on the podcast that's the tried and true

way and we're very focused on

relationship building certainly in our

company and in this group that we're

talking to now

but is there a way to scale that is

impossible

as one person

so it could be something that could be

outsourced to a group like yours

to yours specifically to help

kind of scale that a lot of it depends

on on list eyes you could start off with

an email blast and then just work with

people that write you back

um i personally believe

that you making the calls pam will be

much more effective than individuals

depending on the size

before about not having that sort of

experience to convert that call i'd say

quite the contrary pam you're an amazing

person you're very personable you know

how to speak with people and show active

listening

the fact that you haven't been making

cold calls for 20 years means that you

don't have bad habits that if you ask me

to work with a call center we could mold

you and make certain suggestions

gotcha and so those are the sort of soft

skills that would only increase

in your ability i love that because

you're talking about a real partnership

with whoever hires you

to utilize the call center where it

makes sense but train up the client

where it makes sense as well

even if that training might just be

self-confidence or

you know brushing off dusty skills kind

of thing and a lot of it's dedicated

practice there are certain things we

could suggest for you to practice on

your own time but i don't know ma'am i i

think someone like yourself just going

off the bat and being raw and just

showing your own pure essence of what

you have i think it would be received

favorably because most people do canned

speeches they grind through the calls

and they lost a certain oh gotcha gotcha

was the only player that got them in

it's not i really listen to your podcast

it's i listen to your podcast and they

don't they barely remember the name of

the podcast they listen to as opposed to

the work we actually do yeah it happens

that's interesting and then

but for somebody who say is building a

membership

and they have a lead funnel in facebook

ads but they're looking for another way

to cultivate leads

this would be something you could help

them with like at what point does a

client come to you and say

i could use help with this or what point

would it be really beneficial for them

to come to you and say

hey i've got this situation how can you

help me

depends on if they're a specialist

or if there's other areas of their

business they'd like to focus on let me

give you an example from even myself

and growing my business

i needed specialists for the i.t

department since i'm in a foreign

country i do need to understand the

labor law so i had to get an attorney

and a human resources director

and also an accountant could i do all

these things potentially

but there's only so many hats you can

wear and there's only so much time that

you have and so i i think if it makes

sense for somebody to have someone

prospect calls for them set up

appointments to call back maybe a hot

lead transfer or just being able to

receive those inbound calls for them

while they're on other calls or on other

appointments that would make perfect

sense to scale that way and as long as

you're giving us all the resources

and that you have a very clean company

culture

that is enthusiastic

because there's a lot of times people

might

i don't know might have more of an

aggressive tone and might think that

something that could work in manhattan

or in chicago or philadelphia could be

the same sort of vocabulary in momentum

north carolina

exactly and so we just have to make sure

that certain company cultures are able

to mesh and then

we're following all the labor laws

i love that that that's fantastic

because one of the things i think that

people

comes to mind when you think call center

is and this is what i really want to

dive in with too with you because i love

it is that it's unhappy robots behind

the phone

who

are just

following a script and watching the

clock to get out of there well you've

created something completely different

than that

and like you were telling me you've got

game rooms and a cafe that the cafeteria

is done in a 50s diner style and you

work with and train and provide your

employees with resources and

one of the things i always felt was done

wrong in corporate and i always talked

about is that it was profits first

people second

and it doesn't work that way you you

don't

build a sustainable long-term culture

that way you you build a

quarterly responsive

soon to die

goliath that way

okay and

but the way that you really build a

business is you know that people first

means profits are also first because

they come right along with it tell me a

little bit about what you do to engage

your your workforce there and really

besides the fact that you you've been in

it and they know that you know what they

do

what else do you do to really make this

a different standout call center

well i always think of the chuck e

cheese philosophy if nobody shows up for

your birthday then you have no friends

and so you could try to put as much

profits as you want in front of

something but if nobody shows up you're

not making any money

so

this industry you're mentioning certain

things you might see on tv

and wolf of wall street glengarry boiler

room prime gig those those are the

hardcore

boiler rooms and call centers that sell

stock and other real estate

but there are a lot of amazing people

that earn a living making and receiving

phone calls now i myself i thrived in

this industry i didn't burn out i was

able to build my own center because i

realize that there is an art of speech

if you're just looking at a clock and

you're grinding it why don't you go get

another job you shouldn't force yourself

to do something you don't want to do

and you're also talking about a lost art

most people are doing things via chat

and email and the fact that people are

still capable of communicating showing

active listening

you know engaging in their cognitive

skills it only makes them more

marketable and then their relationships

outside of the call center

do have an influence on the work that

they do here

and so we're just not looking at someone

that i'm looking to churn and burn there

there might be an outside influence and

so i mentioned earlier about extending

empathy the fact that this soldier and i

have been in those shoes

might be off that day i'll use a little

kill pam i'll say listen you know i know

you're better than that and you seem to

be a little out of character you're not

smiling as much as usual uh-huh as long

as i follow the labor laws and just work

within a certain parameter of

resetting somebody

and getting them to where they need to

be it'll be fine but i i have a niche i

i got luxury here because english is

their second language so for the fact

that they're getting a return of

investment there is stimulation there

because they are speaking in a second

language they're not zoning out because

of this such intense

concentration for sure time for the

translation

these people are incredible

i can expand their vocabulary with a

thesaurus so they can have similes and

really work on their delivery

their earnings potential is limitless

and they know that you're investing in

them for them

and it's a payback to the company as an

after effect

but you're investing in them for them

yeah it's of course so real tell me

about this cafeteria how did you do out

of 50s cafeteria

well there's always things you wanted as

a kid i had the space and so i mean

you know if you're going to philly you

might as well get black and white tile

and the red and white booths i love it

it's my coca-cola colors it's my it's my

logo colors look at

this and it just needs to be fun i

always think that if you think young you

act young and so besides my pinball

machines and jukeboxes and 50s cafes i i

really tried to create an environment

where people can let all steam recharge

batteries hang out with me or make

friends

and make it inviting

so

they can really once again reset

themselves before going upstairs and

hitting the phone again i love that and

speaking of games like right so in fact

interestingly i have a

a morning process i go through and one

of the things that i actually was

listening to this morning was talking

about

you know

linking up things that are yucky to do

with things that are fun to do and

creating uh almost gamified experience

to get those yucky things i'm like i

don't know maybe it's uh

you

call friends while you're on a walk if

you don't like walking or

you walk while you're calling friends if

you don't like talking on the phone and

you do like walking it may be the case

but you pair those things up so that it

becomes a little more palatable and and

fun to your point i'm a big believer and

all of life should be fun uh be it at

work or um you know at home and i know

there are things that come and go i'm

talking about the overarching

um

emotion ought to be fun and if we can at

all manage to do that and

um

how do you gamify the works the work

where you are how have you done that

inside the call center

what a fantastic question

well

first is prior to even making a phone

call i addressed fear so i let them know

by learning a second language is 10

times harder than anything i'm about to

put them on so that puts that in

perspective

secondly i'll give them all the

resources so i reduce fear that way of

the unknown

and then when they're upstairs there are

certain sort of metrics that we can

follow in our quality control department

to make sure they do what they have to

do but for me i really play on the soft

skills

i'm not going to do a certain game where

we're acting the full

or we're looking to look unprofessional

but maybe we will keep score on how many

times i say the name pam on the call and

do the name drop

did i use the military alphabet was

there a positive escalation before the

transferred call

and also in regards to active listening

is there certain chances where i was

able to confirm for my edification

or even use a me too technique if there

happened to be a dog barking in the

background or another noise that i could

somehow address it put it to bed anchor

in on something in common grab my grip

and move from there and so it's really

more about just living in the now

active listening and being exceptionally

engaged in the phone call because it's

zigs and zags there's never straight

lines in nature and so as long as you

are prepared yeah and there's no reason

why you can't

let the client assume they're in control

the conversation where you're more just

the rudder of the ship

and do you give your team things to

literally score themselves on so they

can see themselves improve at this or

that like i can see their recordings

back they've been graded and when they

listen to themselves they'll realize if

they were going too fast yep interrupted

or cross talked or forgot to do the

military alphabet or name drop and so

it's really not me are you saying

anything pam i'll just look at you

and do this go i know richard i know i

did that yeah otherwise this is more

i'll just make the face derrick a

certain time and then they will the

self-improvement is from self-analysis i

could agree with you more

i love the idea of re-listening to the

calls

and because then you can be objective

with it and you do pick up i know when i

re-listen to videos or snack and learns

or other things i'll pick up things

that need improvement and that's the

only way you can do that is if you look

at it i hate to use the term

self-critically because it sounds

critical

but it's it's really self-development

or areas of

focus i try to do things

diplomatically and then i'll always say

hey pam would you mind if i make a

suggestion then you say yes richard so

now i have permission and then instead

of saying you should do this in order

for me to have a b c and d i did this

does this make sense and then you would

say yes and then we practice the role

play and then you're you're good to go i

always address myself first you did

mention i made these calls before and so

the best thing for me to do is to share

on how i was able to crack codes and

master levels

and get to where i am today so it's it's

humbling but then again it's reassuring

i love that so

if somebody what is the skill set that

somebody should carry into a call center

job

which favors the brave that's number one

people need dedicated practice

it's muscle memory they could be

exhausted after an eight hour shift of

just receiving phone calls it's a

controlled environment it might seem

monotonous at times you were mentioning

the downside of the course

but if somebody sees the art of speech

and is constantly looking to ways to

improve their vocabulary

and do the as you say the sixth name

drop during a call then then you have

really

increased your speaking skills

and if you think that call centers are

the be all end all no not true as i

mentioned you will be exceptionally

marketable and if you can master this

sort of environment there's nothing else

you can't do and if you happen to start

your own business as your entrepreneurs

are doing

you're prepared

and you're just not writing checks

you'll be walking the roads you'll be

sitting with your agents you'll be on

boarding them

supporting them yeah and i believe are

the best leaders

i love that and of the group that comes

in the door and that you work with it

sounds like you do some pretty intensive

training and culture

work with them to adapt to the culture

of your company but still keep their own

personal identity

the culture when i see the culture all i

really mean is

get them interested in that independent

growth that they can have in this

environment while still you know totally

embracing that total human that they're

bringing to the table sure we have two

types we have those that have worked in

the center before so my difference in my

culture because we have the same

equipment and the same sort of workflow

it's the fact that i know your name and

that we're a small enough company where

you can really

you know build here and i can delegate

and promote you

and now if you've never worked at a call

center before you're not coming in with

any sort of bad habits right not a

cancer

pam you and i can mold our squire into a

night

right so those are the sort of things

and a lot of them if not most of them

will say that i'm the only boss that

does know their name which i think is a

shame yeah it is then again if they want

to continue this sort of culture and

tradition when they do start their own

company maybe they will be the one

percent that actually makes the efforts

they'll appreciate and and it also goes

back to something that i've

felt ever since i started in the mail

room frankly is

you can make any job a game you can make

any job fun um

and what i like about this is you're not

just making it a game for a game sake

like my game in the mail room was that i

could put tape on the floor step 10 feet

back from all those mail slots and toss

letters and get it in the right slot

that's a game for game sake there's no

life-growing skill i'm gaining there

except being able to make something fun

you're actually gamifying this in a way

that if somebody comes in here and says

wow this is a chance to develop my

my speaking and this wouldn't just be

for english as a second language i mean

we can all always develop our speaking

habits and our understanding of active

listening and how to communicate

if that's the

reason i'm there the calls are really

the tool for learning they're basically

practice exams over and over and over

and over again for that growth

pam you could save a divorce

you could save thanksgiving dinner

friendships

just by having these sort of skills yeah

yeah i love i love how much there is to

this and how you're doing it

um

and i have to ask okay so in your bio

you talk about

i hope i'm getting this term right

phonetic micro expression reading yes

tell me about this you have got to share

it

let me show you the picture first if i

may can you see that

yep i can

phonetic micro expression reading and

then we've got pitch and rate

micro expression reading is visual when

you study body language and haptics and

self and object adapters there's a lot

of ways you can gauge someone's

reactions but

in my environment

you

lose the luxury of sight yes

genetic micro expression reading is

purely sound oriented now i do believe

that individuals give out tell signs in

conversations they're not even paying

attention to it it's almost like lazy

speech

phonetics is broken down quickly into

tone rate pitch and duration in my

opinion a tone should be consistent it

should be confident and empathetic you

and i are focusing on the rate of speech

and the pitch the speaking level i need

to match that so there's a mirror

imaging technique why

so i can see how fast or how loud you go

every 30 seconds to two minutes to see

if there's a spike in her dip that's you

should want to ask a tie down or a pin

down question but that could still be

manipulated so i believe that an

answering speed is something that people

cannot control subconsciously and so if

they're inconsistent there that's

usually when you need to follow up with

a certain question

this is happening on first first-time

phone calls you are reading these

individuals and so a lot of the times

people will be concerned on they didn't

convert the call get an appointment or

even

make that sort of connection well you

left a door open and besides asking your

questions getting the answers there are

as i mentioned before certain tell signs

that people will give you

because you've had calls before where

you've called into a customer service

department very relaxed in the beginning

screaming at the end or screaming guilty

it happens like in a boxing match so

don't don't claim that the first 30

seconds of pam is the same as the five

minute in

and so as long as you can and that's

what that's what expression reading is

you need to have a consistent variable

to see inconsistencies i chose 30

seconds to two minutes of time which is

the average attention span and i also

break it down into introductions bodies

and conclusions for that period of time

because that's usually how a

conversation flows and once you see it

you can't unsee it after three weeks it

becomes habit it is

magic to me it's not that complicated

because the fact that you are still

capable of doing your job listening

working with people but still in the

back of your mind doing that xy charges

to see how

pam is reacting is it a positive or

negative reinforcement yep and so if you

can't do it on a call then why don't you

just study

uh speech in movies

right radio and you just start just only

analyzing that in fact if you want to

make it even better do it in a language

you don't understand do it in german do

it in french don't do it in english we

probably do do it in languages we don't

understand without really knowing it

like you can watch a conversation in a

language you don't understand and get

an idea very quickly of

what type of conversation it is and

who's escalating who's

calm who you so i hear what that just

really made a light bulb go off for me

sure and it's good practice it's it's

something that you're capable of doing

while you're working and i also believe

in luxury of time there is impulse

control somebody allows you

a moment to sleep on it take a walk

write a draft maybe send it tomorrow you

might readjust yourself not send the

draft say pam i apologize for my tone

yesterday kind of thing

and there's ways in which to reset

yourself so i think you should be using

time

as your advantage because

pam today could be different tomorrow

right and these are the sort of things

you must take into consideration for

long-term relationships yeah that's

actually a really interesting i'm going

to interject with a little story right

now because we just actually had a team

meeting

and

like you said 30 second pam's not

five-minute pam's not the same am you

know same with richard you're not the

richard half an hour ago that that

you're on the call but you kind of are

the same person inside

but we just had this meeting we're

having a great team meeting and all of a

sudden it hit me that our

drive was unorganized like where we keep

all of our our files

and i just basically said this needs to

be fixed this needs to be a priority and

be done in a month

and like

i just shifted in that moment in my

whole temper my whole delivery my whole

everything from my normal kind of bubbly

self because a trigger had been hit we

couldn't find a file to work on together

so we wasted like five or ten minutes

trying to find it and um so i hear what

you're saying it's like so you you'll

take a 30 to two minute increment

analyze where the ups and downs are in

rate and pitch of speech

loud soft

fast and slow usually people are in

quadrant one like for an example if

you're going to gauge me gauge me on 8

in speed and 8 in sound that's been

consistent for the last 25 minutes if by

chance i go lower slower go to second

third or fourth quadrant

that's a major red flag that's the times

when you need clarification edification

or potentially the person could be

facetious with you and you might need to

ensure that you're getting the right

answer it's

something that doesn't happen overnight

and you were asking me before about a

burnout board watching the clock well

yeah

that happens so what could i do

in this environment besides doing my job

well i'm speaking to 150 people a day

besides converting calls and being the

best i could be is there anything else i

could do on this yeah drop your name a

couple more times use that military

alphabet ask a follow-up question in

regard to your dog barking and

master this micro expression reading

because my time was on it's almost like

mentalism

you know when to interject you know when

to ask open-ended questions and allow

you to answer for me and so

not that i've been manipulating

conversations but if you look at my

metrics my talk time is twice as much

i'm making half the amount of calls

today because i'm speaking to more

people

and my numbers are through the roof

because i'm closing more deals mm-hmm

what am i doing differently

pam and i are having the best phone

calls ever that's what i'm doing so

that's yeah

myself and somebody else is just

grinding those calls

i absolutely love love love love love

that and and folks i want you whether

you're watching this live or on the

replay i want you to circle back to this

and play this section over again here at

20 started we started about 25 minutes

in and i'll mark that in the comments

but this concept of of listening in a

way that's not just everything you've

always heard about active listening and

you know repeating things back and

making sure you understand this is a

very unique

and thank you richard for sharing it

with us you know i'm guessing you kind

of developed this

thought process on the the two axis

graph

and

think about next time you're in

conversation with somebody in the

background just have a little picture of

that down on your paper

take a 30 second or a 2 minute time

frame probably closer to a minute and a

half or two minutes i'm guessing the

cycle is

could be as quick as 30 seconds up to 2

minutes i always i always look for

that's what i learned in college when we

were doing focus group studies in my

communication classes you look for

consistent variables you need to put it

into categories and subcategories so for

me it was almost the language that i

knew in college i just applied it

towards phonetics and then once again

phonetics was as simple as tone rate

pitch duration

the tone you don't want to match it

because if someone's angry but then

again i saw the rate and the pitch and

then the duration was the real special

sauce the the real tell sign the

answering speed which is the funniest

thing because phonetics is sound and i'm

saying hey pam the greatest tell sound

you have is the silence

that's what makes your genius

i

love it

and when you say duration just to make

sure we're all clear on it

you mean how long they

wait before they say something how

quickly it takes them to answer you yes

how long it takes to answer that's why

the cops usually ask the third or fourth

tough question during the interrogations

you'll see things change immediately you

can manipulate pam your tone your rate

and your pitch it's almost impossible

for you to go 10 for 10 in regards to

your answering speed well you'd probably

drive somebody crazy if you did wouldn't

you don't we need the variety well then

i think you're a genius

if you're capable of controlling your

subconscious like that because you can

or a genius or a um

what do they call them psychopath or

look at somebody that that so she has

things that everything is great but once

they put in special hot sauce they can't

help but spit it out sweat and need to

drink five gallons of water so your body

physiologically

can't only handle things so much

yeah and so as i say before the tell

sound is the pure it's it's it's the id

of the person not the lower the persona

which is the cone rate and pitch

i love that wow you've done some amazing

thinking on this i love it do you speak

on the road about these topics at all

are you focused

totally on your call center

just on the call center at the moment

when i'm doing these podcasts i just

love sharing ideas with my friends and

putting in your sales

i loved your show so it you know

inspired me enough to write you and here

we are today and i'm so glad we're in

each other's circles because this has

been one of the most fascinating

conversations and

i've like written down a ton of notes

i'm going to be going to play around

with them as well because i find

everything about communication and

all of this and and just we hit on so

many so many

points the communication and and making

it effective creating a culture where

people really want to work feel value

learn and develop and if the next thing

they do is go off and be an entrepreneur

that's wonderful for everybody

um

and then

gamification promised me this though

just like fire

it could be used for warmth and health

and can also burn

yep when your audience when

they master these skills they're going

to become a lot more lucid yeah when

speaking with people

and so i would appreciate if they

use this sort of delicate skill to not

embarrass somebody

publicly yeah put them down

because you are going to be crystal

clear on what's happening use your

diplomacy

and strategy by asking for

clarification

and edification

during those periods of time i love that

and the thing i love about this group

and why i do this here and share these

kind of skills is that we screen it very

carefully for that very reason and it's

it's folks who want to do things

the right way it's folks who understand

and agree with our concepts about

people not only first but people is

profit is a derivative of people not the

other way around kind of thing and

and uh

looking to build things on relationships

and in a meaningful yet also scalable

way and i think you've kind of given us

the best best of both of those well

folks listen if you're

in your business are ready to start

getting some help on and i'm going to

list a few and then you can tell me what

i'm missing but lead generation call

conversion

what else would they call you for if

they need some umph and muscle behind

their their business practices

remember sales appointment setting lead

generation customer support back office

support there you go much longer and

better list than i could do it's really

your client it's really potentially a

client journey from lead all the way

through support once they're in your

business working and i have a very

strong feeling that calls you get from

this call center have a unique

impact on people it's different than the

ones that i'm getting every five seconds

because i work with so many clients on

their financing um saying you know hey

we have three million dollars for you at

four percent over ten years

you know those those kind of calls it

sounds to me like

there's a relationship building from the

minute i pick up the phone

it can be it depends on the vertical

we're very selective of what comes in

here but i promise pam we'll never call

you at dinner you're not one of those

that's okay i never answer them anyway

that's why i have i let him go to

voicemail but perfect

all right great well this has been

wonderful i can't thank you enough for

spending some time with us in the group

i know folks might have questions if

they do i will just circle back with you

and get answers for them um i've gotten

a ton out of this i can't wait kind of

for my next phone call my next

conversation to really start trying to

dial in the um

the pitch and rate

concept here it's really sounds

interesting to me and i'm i'll practice

on my family so i'll tell them i'm

practicing it

then it won't look obvious when i'm on

call but hang on just a second i need to

draw something on my graph

so thank you so much this has been a

blast had a wonderful time pam thank you

awesome folks have a great rest of your

tuesday we'll be back with you i believe

this thursday again and uh you know

where to find us drop your questions

drop your comments that's my dog signing

off for us have a great afternoon