Monthly Archives: September 2010

Trick-or-Treater wearing Ann Handley costume knocks on my door

September 12, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Humor | Tagged , | Leave a comment

This entry is purely fictional as nobody in my neighborhood goes trick or treating except to units advertising that they are “open” for Halloween.

It was a dark and windy night. Little kids kept coming to our door with expectant faces longing for an endless acquisition of candy. It all seemed so obsessive compulsive, and all at such a tender young age. A few witches, goblins, skeletons, cowboys, and others who looked like miniature members of “The Village People” came knocking. It was all so typical. I had seen it for so many decades. Nothing seemed to change.

Then a few minutes later, a girl came in very distinctive, tell-tale black glasses — the same exact kind Ann Handley wears in her pictures and uses in her graphics for social media posts. The girl was wearing the same shawl that Ann Handley wore in pictures too. What was this? Was this an eighth grader’s idea of a costume?

ME: Young lady, aren’t you a little young to be an Ann Handley look-alike?

GIRL: Well, actually, in my age group, statistically 2.3% of the market segments of eighth graders from my parent’s income bracket in my town and similar towns in California are interested in marketing including sub-segments of Social Media Marketing, B2B, email marketing, and other marketing specialties.

ME: Well, you certainly know your metrics.

GIRL: Those are segments, not metrics. However, I learned that in this neighborhood, 43.2% of homes will open their doors for trick-or-treaters between the hours of 7pm and 8:45pm, but what we call the “bounce rate” starts rising gradually after that.

ME: I guess one of us did her homework! So, what’s your favorite neighborhood to go trick-or-treating, metrics aside?

GIRL: I like the neighborhood directly East of here. They are mostly Mexican and often offer SALSA & CHIPS to trick or treaters. Unfortunately, one played a trick on us and put some habanero sauce and mixed it in the salsa without warning us.

ME: Interesting. Well, I have asked you some questions. Would you like to ask me any?

GIRL: Yes, I have walked several blocks to get to your area. I’m tired, exhausted, and have lost my will to bang on doors anymore. Now that I am in your doorway, my only question is — WILL THERE BE SNACKS?– or treats?

ME: It is uncanny how similar you are to Ann Handley. Her two obsessions in life seem to be fun marketing articles that appeal to people’s emotions, that are fun, easy to read, and packed with meaningful marketing knowledge. Her other obsessions is asking, “Will there be snacks?”

GIRL: Well, you know us eighth graders, our teachers make us do a lot of reading.

ME: Interesting. Well, you will be very interested in the types of treats I have. Since I’m tired of young children who want a happy Halloween experience — since that is NOT what this holiday is supposed to be about: I have Habanero potato chips. Wanna bag?

GIRL: Hmm. Well, I lived through it once. I was thinking more along the lines of Snickers.

ME: Well, speaking of chocolate, not that you brought that to my attention, I had habanero dark chocolate from wine country. I was going to buy the cabernet chocolate, but I thought I’d get this instead to spice things up a little too much.

GIRL: You’re getting warmer.

ME: I also have wasabe chips and … oh look here. I do have a Snickers bar. It is in the pumpkin here on the table.

GIRL: Okay (reaching… )

A horrifying hand that is disfigured, oozing with ooze, and very bony with long fingernails sticks out of the pumpkin.

GIRL: (Shrieks) Ahhhhhhhh!

The girl bolted and ran so fast, that all that remained, was a pair of distinctive Ann Handley style black glasses on the ground. Miraculously, they were not broken. They survived this 14 year old marketing virtuoso, and the fall to the ground. And so ends my charming Halloween marketing tale. Until next time!

Twitter & the American Dream: The chance to make it big is possible

September 12, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I am excited about Twitter, because it has offerings similar in spirit to the American Dream. But, it is different as well. The American dream is that if you work hard, you can make it here. It doesn’t matter where you are from, what you look like, or even if you speak English well. If you work hard and take risks, anyone can make it in America — and have the house with the two-door garage, a wife, two kids, and a dog named fluffy. Twitter’s offering is a little different.

Twitter’s opportunity is similar to the internet’s opportunity. The beauty of the internet is that sites around the world compete for placement on Google and for traffic. Only one site in a particular niche can be the most popular. Twitter is a little bit similar in nature to this. On Twitter, you can come out of nowhere, and go VIRAL immediately and gain a MILLION followers overnight. It is possible, although not likely. People always dream of going viral, and marketing managers always talk about it. But, the realities are something you need to think about.

It takes SKILL to go viral. Being viral means that you tweet something, someone else retweets your content, and one or more people viewing your tweet on the network who retweeted you — will retweet you again. Being viral could land your tweet in the inboxes of millions of viewers overnight. In real life, it takes years to build up the skill necessary to be popular on Twitter. Most people do not develop that skill even if they are social media professionals — at least not to the level necessary to go viral regularly. Remember, that people who do social media for a living make around $20-80,000 per year. If they knew how to go viral, they could make millions per year and wouldn’t be working for that dumb social media company anymore, right?

I have spoken to staff at multiple social media companies. Nobody was willing to help me write tweets as a separate job description at any of the companies. None were even interested or had tips. So, I had to learn myself. I network with others to do tweet writing by the way. After almost four years of writing tweets, my tweets are finally beginning to be popular. I have written a few that got four retweets. But, what if I can learn to write material so hot that it gets a million retweets?

Twitter is wonderful because it identifies and promotes hot content. If you know how to write content that people love, you can go viral. I am at the level where I can write comments on other people’s twitters and get retweeted 30% of the time. Maybe with a few more years of hard tweeting (hard twork) I can tweet my way to stardom (Twitterdom). Wish me luck! I’m not sure I’ll make it, but at least Twitter affords the opportunity and a chance.

Imagine what my businesses would be like if I had a million followers on Twitter. I would be rich and would have more time to write blog entries! Yay!!! (and a yacht with internet connection)

How to find call center clients — 3 basic points

September 12, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

How to find call center clients / call centre clients

Our staff talks to call centers in India, call centers in the Philippines, and many other places. The #1 question they ask is how to acquire more call center clients or accounts. The answer is actually simple, yet nobody wants to hear it. Call center managers are looking for fancy sounding schemes to attract clients to their call center. People are looking for a magic pill that they can take that will get them more call centre clients. But, there is no magic pill, and customers don’t grow on trees. YES, there are customers out there by the thousands, but YOU might not be getting them. Why? Because you didn’t take the magic pill which I am going to give you. Take this pill once a week, and clients will miraculously grow on a tree just for you! I promise! Trust me!

People are very resistant to hearing common sense advice. But, the secret to “how to acquire more call center clients” is only common sense. So listen! Points 1, 2 and 3 are very basic. 98% of Indian companies FAIL to do all three points correctly which is why they rarely make much money. They present a bad image of themselves.

(1) If you don’t answer your phone, your prospective clients won’t be able to do business with you even if they want to. Most call centers don’t answer their own business’ business line because they are too busy making calls for their clients. Answer your phone! No excuses. Sure, that is too SIMPLE to possibly be good business advice. But, it is common sense truth. Companies that don’t answer their phone are generally small, and stay small, or crumble alltogether.

(2) Have someone answer the phone professionally. A dull “hullo” doesn’t cut it in the business world. Have them announce their personal name and company name.

(3) Have someone KNOWLEDGEABLE and helpful answer the phone. I talk to people all night who can’t answer the phone properly. then, during the day when I call America, I get people who don’t know a single fact about the service they are selling. Goodness gracious. How can you sell a service, if you don’t know anything about it? I would never become your client if you are so useless!

Here are some additional points on having a knowledgable and helpful salesperson

(a) Your salesperson should be personable and get along well with most people.

(b) The information they give should be accurate and realistic. Nobody likes a liar, or someone who gives incorrect information by mistake. You lose call center clients by giving wrong answers.

(c) Being too pushy scares people away. Be nice! Trying to twist people’s arms into signing a contract is a bad idea at first too. Let people get to know your company before forcing them to be bound to a restrictive contract.

(d) Be flexible! Don’t have rigid terms.

(e) Understand how to introduce the company, how many workers you have, and who does what. Tell people about the history of the company as well, and don’t keep secrets. Many companies will refuse to say anything about their workers because it is private. Prospective clients will not want to use your company if you have too many secrets — tell them about everyone who works there.

(f) Avoid trying to present a false big company image. If you are a big company, then stress how PERSONAL you are. If you are a small company, stress how COZY you are. Small companies have many advantages that big companies don’t have. Stress being GOOD rather than being a particular size.

Thats it for now, but there will be more similar blog posts on how to get more call center clients!

Calcutta City Profile

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: City Profiles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Calcutta City Profile
 
Calcutta is a famous city located in the Eastern part of India in West Bengal. The local language is Bengali, but Hindi and English are widely spoken.  It is a very poor city, and definately the poorest of India’s top ten cities. Calcutta does not have much of an IT or Software industry, nor does it have many call centers or other outsourcing industries.  Bicycle rick shaws and “human” rick shaws are still in existance, and prices for basics such as bottled water are lower in price than anywhere else in India. Termed “City of Joy”, this city doesn’t have any more joy than any other place in India, but does have its share of poverty and humidity.  There is so little to do here as a visitor that its not even funny.  The airport is located in the Northern part of town.  There are a few good five star hotels offering excellent meals.  Fort William and the Command Museum are  nice places to spend an hour or so. Touring the gardens and the museum is a nice way to spend an afternoon as well.
 
Local Cuisine
Bengali cuisine is unique to India and has dishes that are very different from anywhere else in the country.   They eat many fish and prawn dishes and with flavors that are very different from Goa, Kerela, or anywhere else in India that features seafood. You can not find Bengali food hardly anywhere in India, so it is suggested that you try it while in town.  Its not a cuisine that I would want to eat regularly, but its fun to try. 
 
Local Travel
Distances in the East of India are large, and its a largely impoverished area.  Bihar is the most dangerous part of Eastern India with gangs controlling all aspects of life and the economy.  Bengal is much better in terms of gangs, but is very poor, and will be more of a culture and weather shock to tourists than most other parts of India.  Going out alone at night is discouraged in Calcutta as it is in most parts of India.  Bangalore and Pune are the only parts of India where it is relatively safe for women to travel alone at night.  Calcutta is the one of the gateways to the himalayas if you are flying in.  Many people fly to Calcutta (Kolkata), and then catch an overnight train to Siliguri on their way to Darjeeling which is the jewel of the himalayas in many people’s opinion.  Kolkata is also on the way to many Eastern locations in Assam, Manipur, and other parts of India where people speak languages more resembling Southeast Asian languages, and where people look very East Asian.  The train ride to Assam is long, but its a part of India which is genuinely away from it all. Relaxed people, hills, and a unique cuisine make going to the Eastern part of India an experience.
 
International Travel
Kolkata has many international flights going to Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, and other destinations too. The airport is nowhere near as busy as Delhi or Mumbai, but it is India’s 3rd largest city, so it gets it’s fair share of flights.

A new way of making inventions

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many people think that great ideas on earth come from heaven. There might be great spirits floating around who transmit great ideas to composers, and inventors. I would bet that Bach had a little help from the folks up in heaven. After all, his music was written for the greater glory of God, so why wouldn’t they help. As a spiritual aspirant, I receive a lot of help from deceased gurus who are so generous in their help towards me. I couldn’t make it without them. As humans, we need to know that even if we don’t perceive spirits, they are there, and they influence our lives more than you can imagine. But, why not take it a step further.

I did some astral travel a few years ago. I projected my astral body into a spaceship while in a trance. I observed that they had some bizarre looking aliens in the ship, but that they had little cubicles in the spaceship with some sort of communication devices. Imagine if someone who was a psychic could be used by large corporations to see what people on other more advanced planets are up to, and try to duplicate some of their inventions down here on humble planet earth. It is a great idea.

I have no idea what these devices could possibly be. Anti-gravity devices and advanced medical technology might be a nice place to start. Better transportation systems might be helpful too. But, what about a machine that can get people to care — now, I would buy that. Unfortunately, caring is not mechanically induced. Someone has to talk you into it. Maybe a machine that can get more people to like you on Facebook. Personally, I want to know what is going on on that spaceship I visited. If they have it, I’ve got to have it.

The benefits of commenting on other people’s Twitter accounts

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

This is very ironic, but on my outsourcing blog, we get almost no intelligent commentary. Those who comment, use spammy generic comments about how intelligently written my blog was and then a link to their site. Unfortunately, this is foolish, and doesn’t work. I will hardly ever publish this type of comment because it is obvious that they didn’t read the actual article and have nothing of value to say. However, if someone who had a link to share did publish something of value in response to my blog, then I would publish their comment along with the link which would have a good SEO value for them. Why is it that there are almost no intelligent people commenting on my outsource blog?

In any case, good blog commenting is a great way to share a link. But, what about good Twitter comments? Commenting on Twitter has many advantages.

(1) Your comment might get retweeted if it is gracefully written. But, even some dumb comments like TYFF (thanks for following) can get favorited and retweeted. Some people ain’t got no class if you ask me! Beautifully written intelligent comments are a lot more likely to gain you new followers and get retweeted multiple time which in turn gets you more exposure and more followers. If you do Twitter, you need at least 10,000 followers to make any dent in your SEO, so start accumulating!

(2) The person who the comment is addressed to might follow you. In my experience, for every ten people I write an intelligent comment to, I will get about two or three new followers. Those odds are not that bad. I might be able to sort through several hundred tweets and write about fifteen good responses per hour which translates into about four new followers for me. Getting followers manually is hard work, so make sure that the people you are contacting are a very well optimized match for your business. Make sure they have the same interests and retweet people regularly or you are wasting your time buddy!

(3) Learning value? By commenting on other people’s twitter, I learn what people like to read that I wrote. If I write a witty whimsical comment and it gets retweeted a few times, I learn that whatever I wrote is popular. I could tweet my comment as a regular tweet if it is so popular. I could even tweet it on a regular basis if it reels in the audience!

(4) If the person you wrote to writes back to you, your Twitter address will show up on their feed. You might get new followers just be being seen. Additionally, commenting gets your icon in the other person’s twitter account if people click the expand link. You can see all of the favorites, retweets, and comments by clicking expand.

I hope this article has expanded your consciousness about twitter. If not, click the expand link!

Should your blog be very industry focused, or more general?

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

It is a common issue among bloggers whether to focus their content only on those in their immediate industry, or whether to try to appeal to a wider audience. Programming blogs are notorious for having only geek-oriented content that no normal human being would want to even look at. There are other blogs that do a little of everything. I believe that a blogging strategy or blog management strategy should be to have a very well thought out mix of articles.

Be industry specific
If your blog focuses only on your immediate industry, the readership will be very limited and you won’t get enough traffic to boost your SEO significantly. You need a healthy percentage of your content to be very industry specific to appeal to your core readers who might be very loyal to you, especially if you publish knowledgeable and useful content regularly. You really need to establish yourself as a reliable source of information.

Appeal to a somewhat wider “related” audience too
My directory is about outsourcing. I could write about outsourcing all day long, but there are relatively few people interested in the topic or involved in it. However, there are industries that are related to outsourcing such as call center, social media, programming, and general business which constitute my related audience, which is not always my primary audience. Going too wide and blogging about Justin Beiber might be a mistake, unless I can tie him in to outsourcing his legal services for all the trouble he’s in.

Appeal to the layperson interested in your business
Don’t write only for the benefit of service providers. Write articles that inform the layperson who is interested in your industry. Tone down the technical language and explain how the customer could find the best service provider or have a good experience by using the right techniques to conduct their business.

Stories & humor
Our most popular blog entries on our notary site don’t employ any particular writing skills. They just have some type of industry specific information or tips that people really want to know. But, there is a limited amount of industry information that I can publish in a month without “running out.” So, I publish stories and humorous articles as well. My team of writers wrote episodes of sitcoms where notaries were featured. Charlie Sheen got notarized in the blog entry: two and a half notaries. We had a Seinfeld episode about a notarization as well as a Cheers episode where Sammy needed to have a notarized name change. Although our humorous blogs never get the same traffic as our hot industry specific content, the crowd loves these articles and it provides a huge boost to our traffic and makes the blog fun for me as well as for them!

Summary
In short, a well balanced blog should cater to many audiences if you want to get some good traffic. Blogs should be formatted in a way that is easy to read and blog entries need to be promoted heavily on social media and newsletters to get exposure. Play your cards right, and you will have a successful blog!

Willingness to work should be the high on your list of criteria

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Of Interest | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

If you are hiring a company, look for willingness
 
I had to look for programmers this year, and I had not gone shopping for programmers since 2005.  Back then, I sort of knew what I was doing, but there is always more to know about who to hire and why.  In any case, shopping around for American programming companies was the worst nightmare I have ever had.
 
The first tricky point was told to me by one of the programming bosses I spoke to. He was by far the most professional, but too short-staffed to be able to help me out.  He liked to keep his operation lean and mean. He told me that many American companies hire Indian companies to do the work without telling their clients here.  This turned out to be an issue many times.  I told each company I wanted to hire, that I wanted to communicate directly with the programmer. I ran into all types of excuses and frustrations.  Several companies told me that I was not a “good fit” for them, since I wanted to interact more, and since I was not a multi-million dollar company.  Another company told me that it would be frustrating talking directly to the programmers, and had tremendous difficulty telling me where all his programmers were. The story kept changing as we kept talking.
 
I hired a good programmer… but…
Finally, I found a company with a good programmer who knew all the languages that he needed to know.  We signed a contract and started work.  I was to visit them for two weeks starting in October.  After the contract was signed, and right before I was to come, they announced that they would not be available on the Monday and Tuesday of week two.  I came anyway hoping for the best.  Little did I know that while I was giving them time on Wednesday of week two to finish up what we started on week one, that they would completely blow me off and work on someone else’s project since I wasn’t physically watching them…. A lesson to be learned.  Thursday I was there, and work got done, and Friday I showed up late to allow them time to finish work up, but work never began until I was in their office.  The moral of the story is that the minute you stop watching people, they might start slacking off.  Also, don’t book a two week trip with a company with an unknown track record.  Make them prove themselves before you invest your time in them.
 
American companies who refused to work
The bottom line is that I found one company who slacked off, and all of the other companies I talked to REFUSED to work for me.  Americans are complaining bitterly about outsourcing, but when you try to hire American companies, most of them say, “Gee, I’m sorry, but you are not a good fit for us”.  I have come to the conclusion, that if you want any serious type of programming work to happen, you are forced to hire an Indian programming company. 
 
So, I went back to my trusty company who I have been using in India for years.  Communication is hard since calling them is difficult and visiting them involves 36 hours of travel.  Other than that, they are wonderful.  So, now they have started the project and done a lot of work in a short time.
 
Willingness
What I learned, is that skills are an important factor in hiring a programmer, but willingness to work, and availability to work are equally, or perhaps more important.  If you hire a company that doesn’t want to work, or a company with only one programmer who suddenly gets busy, your project will be permanently on hold.   My experience is that if you want any type of serious programming work to happen, hire a company with at least four programmers, and make sure they are willing.  I would not judge a company based on what country they are in, but based on the attitude of the boss and the workers, and how good their work is.  The quality of a company is on an individual basis!

Vaastu & Feng Shui for your Business

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Vaastu Feng Shui | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Feng Shui (Vaastu) and Your Business

Definition
Feng Shui is the Chinese equivalent of Vaastu Shastra. But, what do these terms really mean, and how does it effect your business and your life? I have no studied Vaastu and am not qualified to talk about it, but the part of your house where particular rooms are located is critical and which direction certain rooms or doors face is an important factor too.

Misconceptions
Misconceptions of Feng Shui are common. People think its about interior design or where you place your furnishings, and that is a small part of this gargantuan study. Just for the record, there are more than five prominent schools of Feng Shui and they all overlap with each other in some ways, disagree with each other in some ways, and emphasize completely different aspects of feng shui too. So, which school is right?

Classical Style
Classical Chinese Feng Shui is what I studied for a few years during the weekends. We learned how the year a building was built combined with its exact “sitting” direction was the most important factor to consider. There are 24 directions total, and NW has three subcomponents in our style of feng-shui. From the sitting direction and construction year, a chart can be made of the house. The chart can emphasize which PART of the house has good energies, and which part of the house should be avoided. The consensus is that where you spend most your time is the part of your house that is most critical. So, for me I sleep too much, so my bed’s position really matters. For certain females I know who spend six hours a day in the bathroom, that would be their critical room.
 

Remedies.
There are all types of superstitious remedies in Feng Shui that don’t get results in real life. Those who have read many feng shui books are often unaware that feng shui can be TESTED, and if you are using a remedy, you can take notes to see if there are any changes in your life which constitutes a form of evidence even though its not conclusive. Classical style remedies use the five elements, and sometimes you need a big round chunk of metal in your room, sometimes water, wood, fire (use a small red bulb), or earth. The main thing to consider is that if you are in an unlucky building or an unlucky room, the remedy is like a bandaid on a bullet wound. Finding the perfect building is key.
 

Karma and Feng Shui
If something dramatic happened in a building in its history, its karma rubs off on the current residents. The man who lived in my room had lung cancer, and I have developed lung issues (not cancer) while living here. A building that had a murder
or suicide will carry a bad vibration. An area where yogi’s did their spiritual work can carry a spiritual vibe for thousands of years after the fact according to many spiritualists. So, if your building has the right chart, but the wrong karma, you are in trouble. Smart Chinese people go for a building where someone went from middle class to riches.

My Personal Study
I did many readings for people and found that classical feng shui charts reflected the reality of the residents of these buildings in a vague way. If their chart was good overall, most did well, or better than they did in their previous residences. If the chart was bad, then the residents generally had problems. I found that the room was more critical than the house in my readings, but our feng shui Master says its the house. My new interest is in neighborhoods and not houses. I want to take analytics on areas and how those areas effect my business.

Feng Shui Neighborhoods
I have taken over 50 feng shui readings during my travel on hotels and neighborhoods. I sometimes stay at different hotels in a similar neighborhood and see how my business analytics do while I’m there. The results were beyond amazing. Certain areas tripled my new sales, while other areas killed my new sales. Some areas were good for social networks, others for my acupuncture directory, others for my outsourcing directory, etc. Each neighborhood has its own blend of energies which support certain types of businesses and activities. Some places were good for working, while others were good for socializing, or sleeping. Some areas I could concentrate well, while other areas made me feel healthy or happy. The endless variety of characteristics in places is fascinating.

What did I Learn?
I used to think that a lucky room is more important than a lucky house. Now, I think that a lucky neighborhood is more important than a lucky house or room. My business analytics were very similar in different hotels that were within a few blocks of each
other. I found that there are certain energies that pertain to certain areas that are several blocks in diameter, while there are other larger expanses of energies that can go for miles and carry certain types of tendencies. Certain general areas were good for expanding existing business, while particular neighborhoods within those areas were better than others.

Specifics?
Although my actual business is online, and no actual sales made pertained to where I was, the effects of my physical body being in particular areas was staggering:

Downtown Los Angeles, CA was good for renewing existing business, but terrible for gaining new business.
Koreatown in Los Angeles, CA was wonderful for attaining new business as well as renewing and expanding existing business
Santa Monica, CA was great for getting new acupuncture listings on my directory and social media
Ukiah, CA was amazing for attracting new business, getting work done, and staying healthy.
Santa Cruz, CA was great for keeping healthy, but had a stifling effect on how my business functioned.
Napa, CA was positive for contacting those involved with our outsourcing directory. We were able to do
more calls, and have better calls on an hour per hour basis.

 

Feng Shui Hot Spots
Staying in these areas, helped my business and life in particular ways, but what I learned was that there are hot spots that were even more helpful. If I stayed in a hot spot which is an auspicious area, for 90-180 minutes, I would experience an increase
in certain types of sales over the next 24 hours. Of course results would vary day by day, but if you average the results, the findings were amazing. I calculated, that spending an hour in Koreatown was worth $150 in new sales. However, if I spent more than two and a half or three hours, the benefit would be reduced down to nothing. Its sort of like having a battery that can be charged every day, and once it reaches its capacity, it can no longer absorb anything else.

How Does Feng Shui Work?
Feng shui is occult. It works on supernatural metaphysical principles. It can not be explained in Newtonian physics and it doesn’t make sense to a “logical” person, unless that logical person analyzes stats and has an open mind. If your physical body is in a particular place, you absorb certain energies or karma from that place, and that effects your whole organization. If you have 20 people who work for you, and the boss (you) is in an auspicious location, that good luck will effect the whole organization. The luckiness of where the workers are ALSO matters, but not as much as the HEAD of the organization. Many businesses choose to have offices downtown even though rents are much higher than in other places. Those businesses stay there enough for the buildings to have a high occupancy rate. Why is this? Workers get more done downtown because of the energies there. Downtown Los Angeles has a strong productivity energy. When I’m there, I work around the clock and only stop to eat my power-lunch and power-dinner.

How Fast Does Feng Shui Work?
The well meaning folks at the feng shui school always claim that they don’t know how fast a lucky location will help you have good luck in your life. I have answers for this since I track it. Wherever you are effects what happens over the next 20-30 hours
or so. There are residual effects that last longer than that too, and effects of the good luck that could help you years after the fact. I had my friend move to his lucky back room which had a good chart. He was out of work, not getting offers, and he got a job offer THE NEXT DAY. I’m not joking. If I stay at a hotel that has good feng shui on a particular night, the energy will help me the next day ONLY. Sure, residual effects happen, but for my tracking purposes, I see that 90%+ of the effect (rough estimate) of the feng shui manifest itsself the following day.

How Does This Help You?
Whether you live in India, New York, or Kathmando, you need good feng shui. If you have an office filled with call center workers, you could go out of business and lose everything you have no matter how good a businessman you are — do to feng shui. You need to be in a lucky building in a lucky area and you will get better results in a lot that you do.

Wealth consciousness and why it is essential

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Success | Tagged | Leave a comment

There was a wise man who lived in Hardwar in India.

The wise man himself did not have money simply because he didn’t desire it. He had all he needed. He had a cave to meditate in, and a cloth to wrap around himself — he was happy.

One day, a pauper came to visit this wise man. The pauper said that he was so poor, yet desired to be wealthy. He asked what he must do to become wealthy. The wise yogi retorted that he must develop wealth consciousness to attain wealth, and without this consciousness, no real lasting wealth could ever be attained.

The pauper gave the yogi a strange look and said, “I don’t have time for this consciousness nonsense. I am poor and need to find a way to solve my problem of how I lack money”. The wise yogi told the pauper that even his method of describing his problem of poverty clearly displayed the problem of the consciousness. The yogi explained that when you subconsiously feel that you lack money — you will attract more lack of money. When you have a thought — the thought attracts a particular type of reality.

The pauper just looked at the wise man and said, “What does having a thought have to do with reality?”. The wise man said that thoughts have everything to do with reality. Without thoughts, there would be no reality. God had a thought of a beautiful planet, and it manifested itself over time: no thought — no reality– no planet — simple! When you lift your arm up, the movement can not start before your mind has the thought of the movement. All actions begin with starts. When an engine’s piston moves, it all starts with a spark of a spark plug — and the spark is very similar karmically to the thought that commences an action.

The pauper, looked skeptically once again at this long haired simple meditative yogi and said, “So, you mean, that if I think that I will have money, then I will have money?” The yogi said that it was not quite so simple as that. The yogi explained that through the pauper’s entire lifespan of 32 years, he had thought about poverty the whole time. Imagine how many thoughts of lack that gentleman could have had in 32 years — perhaps millions of impovrished thoughts. To turn the poverty around, it might take a million opposing thoughts — thoughts of wealth.

The question is — how do you develop the wealth consciousness?

I will address this in other blog entries!

The new complicated shifting caste system in America

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: America | Tagged | Leave a comment

In a sense, the entire world has a caste system. But, America’s is more complicated. Certain established populations in the United States have certain types of jobs they typically do. The Jewish community is very active in Accounting, Legal, Arts, Education, and Entertainment type jobs. The black community is very active in government jobs. Whites are a little more complicated as they do most types of jobs except for things like hard outdoor labor, and a lot of high tech jobs. Jobs that are too physically or mentally hard are not often done by whites while more “average” jobs typically are.

Then, there are more complicated caste groups like Asians and Hispanics who have a shorter history in the United States (with the exception of New Mexico where they have a longer history.) 1st generation Asians will often have a nail salon, market, or do laborious jobs, while they push their children (often at gun point) to study hard and do something better when they grow up.

Although it looks like we have a caste system, it is more complicated in the case of Asians and Hispanics. The nail salon caste is Vietnamese and Korean, at least temporarily. But, it isn’t a permanent caste since their children will not be caught dead doing those types of jobs. 1st generation Hispanics will often do very hard physical labor jobs under the worst conditions often in factories or in the hot sun. However, their children tend to work indoors as shop clerks, administrators, or frequently as nurses.

What America lacks (and France as the case may be) is a caste that will do the hard jobs. The problem is that nobody born on American soil wants to work hard, and most people born on local soil are too dumb to do technical jobs. The technical and physically difficult tasks are normally done by immigrants. Immigrants do these jobs, but their children can’t or won’t do those types of jobs. So, then in twenty years we need to import another round of immigrants whose children will also not be able to do the jobs that they were brought here to do. This cycle won’t end until America has 2 billion people, there won’t be any more land, trees, or clean water, and yet there still will be nobody to do the hard work. What will we do?

300 years ago America had the same problem. In those days they brought slaves over. This is not a very moral solution to the problem. However, upon hindsight, they were able to get these slaves to do backbreaking work for more than one generation which would be impossible in modern circumstances.

Perhaps if America attached a value to honest hard work, it might be possible for American born people to actually do a little. Or if all Americans were encouraged to do a few years of physical work before graduating into a more sophisticated form of work that might help. America glamorizes education, and higher level jobs. But, we can’t all be brain surgeons. Someone has to clean the sewers. So, we might as well take pride in this type of work. In any case. I have to go. I have a sewer to clean.

But, the future of our behavior of depending on immigrants to do the hard jobs, and then having their kids (or anyone else’s kids) being willing to do those jobs is that our country will grow to a population of 1 billion, with very few being highly educated. This will make it easier for doctors and other higher level people to have a huge salary, and servants in the future. There will be little competition for higher level jobs as American will be more and more a land of paupers. The people immigrating to the United States in large numbers, and the people having the most children in America are desperately poor, and their descendants sometimes make it to the middle class, although most do not. The future is an escalation of poverty growing and growing and growing.

How to test a software company

September 11, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Software Development | Tagged | Leave a comment

How to test out a software company!
 
If you have important projects, you can not put them in the hands of strangers without taking a huge risk. Interviewing companies will only let you know how well a company presents themselves, and background checking companies may get you inconclusive information.  One problem is that you have to give your FTP codes to new software companies, but what if they are not reputable?  What if they take two months to do a week of work after a lot of cracking the whip to get them to do something?  What if they won’t let your site function without paying them some unreasonable sum of money? It is risky hiring programmers.   Additionally, once a company has your FTP codes, it takes time to have server admin people change the FTP codes and send it to the new party.  Many things can go wrong and the process that should have taken a day or two took close to two weeks to have the new party able to login with the server codes. 
 
So, what can you do?
I interviewed many software companies.  The problem is that when you talk to the salesperson, they always put on a good front, so that you will feel confident about their company when they might not even be able or willing to work with you. Salespeople will tell you any type of lie to get you on board, and then once you are involved, you will be talking to the technical manager, and will never hear from the salesperson again. 
 
Lesson #1 – never believe anything the salesperson tells you — no matter what.
 
The technical managers will tell you what they can’t do, and will tell you all of the limitations, and will very happy to reject you as a client.  Also, technical managers typically do not like people like me talking directly to their programmers.  My projects are complicated, and without direct communication, we will have a mess that you can’t believe.  It is better if I am sitting side by side with the programmer during the tricky part so we can get it right the first time, but programming folks like to keep their clients as distant as possible — why?
 
Lesson #2 – dig by asking questions.. see if their staff is really in America or somewhere else?
Even if you are in India, you need to know if you are dealing with a real company.  Visiting them before you hire them makes sense. If you see a big office with dozens of very busy looking people, that is a good sign.  If it is a small office, and there are only a few people who look sluggish, or are absent a lot of the time — watch out!  If they are hiding their office and don’t want you to come — AVOID these people.   Many American companies have back office workers in Vietnam, India, China, or somewhere else, but want to charge an American price.  You might as well deal directly with India yourself unless that company is a great intermediary.
 
Lesson #3 – don’t believe a company that says they want you as a client
I was told by a few companies that they were willing to work with me as a client.  Many were anxious to set up interviews, but the interviews led to them asking me lots of questions and me not knowing who they REALLY were.  I only knew how they presented themselves.  I was flat out rejected by the most expensive company I interviews during the interview.  It was insulting, but at least they didn’t play games.  Another company said they wanted to work with me.  However, when I called for more information there were problems.  I could only get the information from Amanda, but whenever I called, Amanda was either out for the day, at lunch or at a meeting. This company refused to let anyone else answer my questions.  Finally after trying Amanda four times, I was told that I was not “A good fit” for the company.  I spent half a million in programming in the last decade. I’m not sure which part of half a million is not a good fit even for a fancy company.
 
Lesson #4 – Test them out on the phone
Many people at software companies are lazy and unresponsive by phone.  Call people and ask them to call you back and see what happens.  If they leave you high and dry now, you can rest assured that you will be left high and dry after you hire them and they have your FTP codes.  Call companies up and ask for information — see how fast they get back to you if at all.  Ask for an appointment to work on a small project to test them out.  See how long it takes them to call back.  Or, better yet, ask for the programmer to personally call you at a specific date and time.  Most programmers would not pick up a phone if they had a gun pointed at their head.  You can learn a lot by asking people to lift a finger and putting the ball in their court.
 
Lesson #5 – Have them do a small project
You don’t really know someone unless you have done activities with them. You can find out people’s quirks, and how cooperative or helpful they are if you do a mini-project with them.  If they are reliable on a small project, then try them out on a bigger project, and keep it growing.  You are in trouble if you have a huge project that you are desperate to finish, because programmers are typically busy and don’t have time to give you more than a few hours per week.
 
Lesson #6 – Consult a psychic
It is hard to know who to use.  Sometimes a good psychic can steer you away from a bad situation.
 
Good luck — you’ll need it!