Author Archives: 123outsource

Is it better to motivate workers, or to inspire those already motivated?

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It is not so easy to motivate people. Motivation comes and goes. You are safer hiring people who are already motivated and then inspiring them to greatness. But, how to you spot greatness?

Most employees don’t care about their job and want to do the minimum — at least with lower level jobs. The secret is to see who will do extra. In the long run, if an employee is going to last and do amazing work, if they are not willing to do a little extra, they won’t be worth much. But, how can you test people out?

1. Ask people to come on the weekend
Especially if you ask people at the last minute. Most people value their weekend time. See if they come. See if they complain about coming or hold a grudge after.

2. Ask people to meet a deadline earlier than necessary
If people are cooperative about meeting an early deadline, that is excellent. Of course in the long run it is about consistency, not one time performance. But, if you get a good first perfomance, you might get a second and a third.

3. Email
See how fast people respond to emails when they are off duty. My experience is that those who answer business emails on the weekend will be better workers. Maybe not super stars, but better.

4. Calls
Ask them to call you when they are done with something. Most people you’ll never hear from. They wait for you to call them. Initiative means they call you.

5. Dropping the Ball
Most employees specialize in dropping the ball and not taking responsibility. Find a way for another employee to spot the employee that dropped the ball and pick up the ball. This means when an employee flakes on a particular responsibility, find that other employee who will spot what happened fast and correct the situation. Otherwise you are the one who has to solve all of the problems at your company.

6. Study Requirements
Ask employees to study something on their own on the weekend. See who actually does it. Tell them it’s not required. Most people won’t do what is not required. But, those who do are special.

7. Spy on Them
If not asked to clock in, see who takes an extra long lunch break. See who is on Facebook when they are supposed to be working. See who is gossiping instead of getting work done. If you are observing people without them noticing, you’ll learn a lot.

Summary
Basically, your job as boss and manager is to accumulate a small army of people who are super loyal and super responsible to run your company in your absense. Then you can concentrate on growing the company. Those high quality people should get paid more, should get respect, and should be given harder responsibilties so they know that you take them seriously. People who are just fooling around do not merit a good salary, especially without having paid any dues by sticking around at your company. Judge salaries by longevity at your company and track record — not number of years in the field or test results (although those are factors.)

How do I find a company that does online surveys?

Categories: Data Entry | Tagged , | Leave a comment

123outsource.net has a wide variety of companies involved in various data entry related tasks. One of the popular specialties is online surveys. Additionally, we have call center search results where you can get phone survey work done and KPO companies that can do marketing research and interpret the results of your surveys.

Just visit www.123outsource.net and then visit the:

Call Center Search Results
http://www.123outsource.net/international_outbound_call_center_lead_generation.htm

Data Entry Search Results
http://www.123outsource.net/data_entry_outsourcing.htm

KPO Search Results
http://www.123outsource.net/marketing_support_outsourcing_KPO.htm

The best business dream I ever had was about lions & giraffes

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We all love to dream.
Some of us dream while we are sleeping while others daydream at work during a boring assignment. But, my life got a whole lot more interesting when I learned to analyze my dreams. I have been seeing Walter for years now. He is a gifted psychic as well as a talented dream analyst. Not only did he teach me what my dreams meant, but he taught me some of the basics of dream analysis. I am nowhere near as good as he is, but I generally get about 40% as much interpretation out of my dreams as he does which is not bad — plus I’m getting better as time passes.

I dream about all types of things.
Once I dreamed that my wallet was in a stream. I picked it up and then there were some coins there. My income was sky height that month. I dreamt about co-workers and what was going on in their life. I dream about what I’m going through emotionally as well. Some of my dreams are about childhood while a few are about things that happened in past lives, or even a few years in the future like my trip to Dubai insh’allah! I have a 300 page journal filled with all of my dreams for the last ten years. It all started when I had a dream of a whale surfacing from the deep and my guru refused to interpret it for me. It turned out to be a dream about my spiritual group. But, my psychic explained all of the symbology to me until I got it.

Lions & Giraffes
Animals in dreams are fun as well as meaningful. Each animal could represent a part of you. On the other hand, the character of the animal is even more important than which type of animal it was. Was it angry, happy, or taking a nap after licking its paws? My favorite dream of all time was me walking in Africa. There were some large lions walking down the road straight towards me. I didn’t run out of the way. I walked straight towards them and bumped against them while walking by. That is such a macho New York type of behavior for people in high school by the way. Then, I saw a herd of baby giraffes who were cute. The real meaning of the dream had nothing to do with how beautiful and cute these giraffes were.

What did the dream mean?
The lions in the dream represented my robust side. I have gone from being timid to being angry to confident. Me walking straight towards those lions represented fearlessness — the best attribute a warrior can have — and business is just like war in many ways. The giraffes represented being able to see the future. Since giraffes have long necks they can see who is coming from far away. My giraffes were still babies, but they show that the ability to see the long-term is growing within me fast these days.

Pay attention to your dreams.
I don’t know what type of dreams you have, but if you write them down, they might be more interesting than you can possibly imagine. Dreams are information encrypted with universal symbols. The information in dreams is real, but might be past, future, or present and often doesn’t have a provable or definitive meaning. However, I feel that dream information is valuable. So, keep track of what you dream — you never know how important that information could be for you in the long run.

What if you had your aptitude tested in the 1700’s?

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Aptitude tests are important. They tell us what we are smart at and what needs improvement in our brain. However, they might not tell you what you are passionate about. If you are mediocre at something, but passionate about it, you might become amazing at it in time.

Aptitude tests in England in the 1700’s
Just out of curiosity, I went into a trance and went back to the 1700’s in England to see how aptitude tests were given. I saw an older gentleman in one of those triangular hats watching a few strapping young lads take a written examination. They were being sized up to see what type of career they would be good for. They were from a good class, well dressed, and their futures were bright. At the end of the hour long exam, the elderly man looked at his hour glass and said, “We’re out of time lads.” He looked at the score results from Tommy and said, “Tommy, you’re best suited to be a pirate!”

A boy was deemed best suited to be a pirate!
Tommy was so happy. “A pirate, that’s what I’ve always dreamed of being!” The old man said, “Hope you don’t mind having a wooden leg and tropical birds as friends.” “No trouble, I’ll be so drunk on rum I won’t even notice — I’ll get out my sword for some sword practice right away sir …. a pirate I shall be, a pirate I shall be — a pirate, a pirate, a pirate I shall be.”

In any case, the way aptitude tests were given back in the day stressed very basic scholastic skills. Most people did whatever their father did and were locked into a rigid caste system. These days, you can do whatever you are qualified to do. It’s harder since your father generally teaches you nothing if he is even ever there! But, the bottom line here is that if you are the reincarnation of that kid from the 1700’s, you might be destined to be a computer pirate! When they put a virus on your computer, it would be more interesting if they said, “Walk the plank!”

But, these sophisticated tests test how smart you are. What really counts is your commitment. Many who go to mediocre schools rise to the top because they stick with something year after year. It is harder for women to become CEO’s, but those who stick to the program at the same company for 20 years often rise to the top while the men go job hopping. So, forget about what you love, and do what you can commit to. Doing a job is like a marriage. You have to stick to it in sickness and in healthy. Your temporary love affair with a particular job might not last in the long-term.

Don’t do what you love
Do what you can commit to

Not enough energy to achieve? Try this!

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Having enough energy is tough these days. We have stress, pollution, and not enough sleep. How can we possibly amount to something in our businesses? In America, people eat burgers, fries, chicken, pork chops and other dishes. The standard American meal is 30% vegetables with perhaps a piece of fruit during the day. Indians think they are so healthy because they eat mostly vegetables. However, Indians are eating greasy potato dishes, lentils, rice, wheat in the forms of chapati, naans, etc. Indian staples are not healthy in such large quantities. So, what is missing?

I notice that for me to have energy to perform at night, I need enzymes, something India gets not enough of. I knew only one girl in India who ate salads regularly. She was Assamese and her father was a doctor. No wonder she was so healthy. Salad is good because it has raw vegetables. Vegetables have lots of minerals. But, when eaten raw they have prana or energy in them. Fresh fruit drinks also have energy. However, if the liquid sits around for more than three minutes, you lose most of the energy.

I drank juice from the juice bar at Whole Foods that made juice fresh for me. I felt good and felt better the next morning. But, when I had juice that had been sitting for six hours, I felt only 30% of the result. The answer is that humans need fresh energy. Most people have too much meat and starches, but not enough water rich foods like fruits and vegetables. Tony Robbins claims that you need to be eating 80% water rich foods and only 20% meats, fish, rice, bread, etc. That is hard for most of us to do, but if you do, you will have tremendous energy.

The rest of the solution is to keep fit, exercise regularly, or at least walk 90 minutes a day. Keep your weight at a healthy level, and breath fresh air.

99 ways to die in social media — choose one!

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It sounds like the name of a movie! How exciting. I can picture one social media manager with a gun and another about to die. But, it doesn’t really work like that, does it? There are many ways to sabotage yourself in social media. People do it all the time. The question is, what are we doing to ruin ourselves, and how do we do it? How can we stop doing it? Here is my list of ways to ruin your social presence on the internet.

1. Not posting regularly
If you post five things at the same time and then do not post for a few days, your audience will not grow or be engaged properly. Use an auto-posting software system so that you can post on a regular basis. You might post every four hours, or only during peak hours of engagement which might be during the day. Or you could post twice per hour twenty-four hours a day to attract an interactional crowd.

2. Posting too much
If you post too much, you are spamming your audience. Each social media platform is different. On Twitter I would not post more than 40 posts per day, and 20 is much more ideal. On Facebook I would not exceed 10 posts per day. LinkedIn and Google plus I would do only 5 per day.

3. Posting content your audience doesn’t like
I test my content out before posting it. The first time I post something, it the crowd doesn’t like it, I’ll remove it after an hour or so. If I retweet something, if the crowd doesn’t favorite it at least once, I’ll get rid of it. Post stuff your audience likes — or perish!

4. Monotony kills
If you post the same content or the same kind of content too much, your audience will get bored. Yes, focus on your core industry specific niche, but also have related content from semi-focused specialties. If you specialize in widgets, you can post about the economy, and manufacturing of other related projects as well, plus news and some pretty photos.

5. Not following people
If you don’t follow enough people on social media, your audience will never grow to critical mass. You need to follow as many relevant people as you can.

6. Now following people back
The easiest way to experience slow growth on social media is to fail to follow people back who follow you. They will unfollow you if you don’t follow them.

7. Focusing on too many networks
It is best to focus on a single social media network for your business. I would devote your social media time 50% on blogging, 40% on your primary social media platform and divide the other 10% on all the other networks combined. If one of your lesser focuses starts panning out, you can always change your focus. Social media is always changing, so your primary network today might no longer be benefitting you in a few years.

8. Not having good content
If you have a blog, the number of posts you have is not a critical number. What matters is how many really popular posts you have. If your blog has 2000 posts and 50 of them are super popular, then you can promote those posts regularly on your various social channels and get a ton of traffic.

9. Following the wrong sub-groups (profiles) of people
If you follow people who are relevant to your industry, but from a sub-group that doesn’t interact much, you lose. I attract many people who call themselves “entrepreneurs.” I think the term represents people who lack a day job more than people who run their own business. Entrepreneurs did not share my posts much at all. However, small businesses that were not relevant to my industry were sharing my content as I run a business blog and they are businesses. CEO’s and HR people also shared my contents. Keep track of who is favoriting and sharing and then profile them like they do on the TV show Criminal Minds. I guess being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean as much as I feel it should mean.

10. Asthetic appeal
It is hard to be informative, interactive and also good looking. Publishing good looking photos on your feed is easy. They might not get shared much. However, you will attract more followers (a lot more) if you have breathtaking photos between your posts. Track your progress each way. If you follow 500 people per day, post just tweets for two days, and then publish tweets and amazing photos mixed together for another two days and see how many more followers you got. Please note that weekend traffic is very different from traffic Monday to Friday so do your experiment starting on a Monday.

11. Regurgitate the right amount
Some people publish the same stuff over and over again. That could be a mistake if that is all you do. Others realize that popular content from the past should be shared again, but mixed in with other stuff. The key is to figure out when your crowd is absolutely tired of your old material and phase it out. I’ll favorite my own stuff that gets results. When I post the contents again, I unfavorite it, and then favorite all over again if it did well. That way if it doesn’t do well the 3rd or 7th time around, it will be dropped permanently from the favorite list. This system gets me a lot of traffic since people like my popular posts!

12. Failing to have lists
Lists help me organize posts from my absolute favorite sources. I retweet from my favorite sources regularly. But, I also mix in retweets from sources that are unknown to me if I see something hot. Many people are not that organized. But, Twitter allows you to have lists — so use that function.

13. Failing to interact
Interacting doesn’t work well on my Twitter profile, but the pros say you need to grow your following by interacting. If your crowd likes to mingle, ask them questions or respond to their posts. Get to know them. It is easier in a niche business. But, regardless, try it and see what happens and try different approaches.

14. Posting at the wrong time of day
In my industry, posting at night is fine, but posting on the weekend gets you ignored. For my other Twitter, daytime is the right time and after 4pm is not optimal at all. Find out when your crowd responds most and focus on that window of time.

15. Foreign languages?
If you are multi-lingual, it might be better to pick a language and stick to it. If I see posts in Spanish or Arabic, I am tempted to un-follow such a person as I am weak in both of those languages. I stick to English. You might be better off having two profiles — one for English, and one for Arabic for example.

16. Putting too many followers on a list
If you have lists, but put 4000 followers on a list — you’ve defeated the reason for having a list. Lists are to focus only on specific profiles that deliver high quality focused results. How can you be focused if there are 4000 people on a list? My biggest list has 52 people, and they are all very focused. I have other lists with only about 10 to 12 accounts. Stay focused my friends.

17. Commenting too much
When people see your profile for the first time it is often in a pop up window which shows commentary. If you make a dumb comment on someone else’s post, your new prospects will not follow you. Your commentary needs to be attractive to a stranger as well as to the person who you are commenting to — as long as it is at the top of your feed. If it is buried then it doesn’t matter. If you do comment, post some good material after and spread your comments out.

18. Not sticking to it
The biggest mistake you can make on social media is giving up, or having lapses. If you want to grow big, you have to keep at it. Make it a priority or do it on the side. But, don’t half do social media. Social media needs to be done either 90 minutes a day or 5 minutes a day. Anything in between will waste too much of your time without getting you the right long term results.

19. Photos help get you more attention
If you tweet just text, you get less attention than posting with photos. Picking dull photos won’t help much either. But, if you pick very relevant high quality photos, your account could really grow — so try it. Experiment with different photos and see what happens.

20-99. Sorry, that I don’t have any more ways to die on social media. But, you can see what mistakes you make and learn from them. You can read otherpeople’s recommendations as well.

Are you functioning like a winner?

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I was watching a video of Tony Robbins while I was relaxing at the beach. I use my beach time to ponder the universe at night and also to read online. But, Tony said that he met a guy who was once a very capable manager. But, twenty years later, he had lost his mojo. He was tired, he didn’t have energy when he communicated, his enthusiasm was dampered. He just wasn’t the same leader. When he was feeling in charge, he moved his hands around more, he behaved as if he was in charge, and people listened more to him and did what he said.

Posture Helps
Part of the secret to being more in charge is to assume postures. Smile, stand up straight, and put your chest out. Behave like you are superman. Move your arms around like someone who is in charge. Think of yourself as being in charge. And also, decide that you are going to be in charge. A guy who feels in charge will have different body language from one who looks like he has given up. A guy in charge will gain more obedience from his workers because their animal instincts will tell them they better obey. The point here is to be more aware of this in charge body language vs. not in charge.

Energy is Essential
It is hard to be in charge if you don’t have energy, are not physically fit, or don’t think like someone who is in charge. It might help to visualize what life would be if you took charge. Visualize how you would interact differently with people. What people you would stop talking to, who you would talk more to, and how you would manage your company.

Take Charge of Yourself
Another factor is that it is hard to be in charge, if you are not in charge of yourself. If you have too many things to do, and not enough time, you’ll be constantly overwhelmed. When you have a schedule that is liberal enough that you are always on top of things, you might feel more in charge. Most of us are running around like we are tied to a back of a train — running just to keep up. This is not good for developing the mentality of being in charge. It is overwhelming.

Have Role Models
To be successful in a big way, you have to be in charge. Maybe it’s good to witness others being in charge. See how good conductors boss around an orchestra. See how the military guys assert their authority (it’s easy because the military will back them up.) See how a good boss from the English upper class says, “And see to it that it gets done before 5pm!”

Summary
When you run a small business and do not have a million dollar budget, sometimes it is a little hard to be in charge. After all, vendors don’t value small clients. So, how can you be in charge when others don’t fear your authority to fire them? I don’t know — I’m still working on that. Maybe offer them 15% more than their asking price if they do good work. I know one very successful company who does exactly that.

Are in you charge?

How to write a resume for an outsourcing job (2016)

Categories: Getting a Job, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many people write to me and tell me they are applying for “the job.” They are so clueless that they don’t realize that there is no job. As a job applicant you need to know who you are writing to, and about which job. Next, you need to be aware of the specific skills and requirements of the particular job. If you are not well suited for the job, nobody will hire you. So apply for work that you are suited for and go to trade schools or anyone who can help you sharpen your communication and technical skills.

How to be in tune with the mindset of the employer
Employers want to know several things about you. Are you loyal or do you jump from job to job. It is costly to interview, train and fire workers, so they will prefer that you stick around. Next, the boss will want to know if you have relevant experience. If you are applying for medical billing, but your experience is in data analysis, you might not be a good fit. On the other hand, if your data job involved a lot of data transcription, you might be a viable candidate for medical transcription as it is related. The boss will also want to know if you are a good fit with the other employees. Do you communicate well and get along with others? The important thing to apply to resume writing is that you have to impress the boss that you will be a reliable and good fit for the job at hand — make sure your resume communicates that clearly.

What type of paper should you use?
Recently in America I’ve been hearing that using fancy off-tone paper is considered to be old-fashioned. So, I’m not sure how to guide you in terms of the paper you’re using. Try to figure out what successful applicants in your industry are doing and do the same thing. If they use plain white paper, then do the same. If they use heavier paper stock, then be aware of that. In my opinion, a higher quality of paper indicates a higher quality of applicant — but, that’s just how I think!

Go backwards through time
A good resume will show what you have done most recently at the top since that is more relevant to the current situation. Inverse chronological order is the right order in a resume.

What to omit?
If you are a jack of all trades and you are applying for a computer job, you might omit non-computer oriented jobs from the resume, or just not elaborate much on the non-computer related jobs. This way you save space that you can devote to clarifying what your job tasks were in the computer jobs. If you spent the entire resume trying to impress the boss with how many fashion jobs you have had, he will steer you in the direction of a fashion job and tell you that the interview is over.

What should you stress?
Keep in mind that the way a prospective boss reads your resume is different from how you read it. First of all they want to see if you stick to a job, or quit after six months. Nobody wants to hire a quitter because they are going to invest time in training you. So, try to only take jobs that you will be willing to stick with in the long run otherwise you ruin your reputation. If you are applying for a job where Java code editing will be crucial, your resume should be tailor-made to emphasize all of the Java related work you did at your other jobs. If you did .Net editing too, that is related as well. I would not omit critical aspects of your other jobs, but make sure to stress what you did that will be needed in the future job you are applying to. Rather than mailing out hundreds of resumes to people who will ignore you, it might make more sense to create customized resumes for particular companies who you’ve talked to who have an actual interest in you. This is called targeting and customizing to your audience and is a popular and effective marketing technique. Just keep in mind that the boss wants to know that you are an exact skill match, that you can communicate, and that you won’t quit, otherwise you’ll be immediately disqualified.

As an employer myself, I was trying to find .Net programmers. The resumes I received discussed about twenty four technical skills that the applicant had. I wanted someone with seven years of .Net experience, and that was the only requirement. The resume was a waste of time as it didn’t tell me what I wanted to know. It told me how much programming experience they had, but not how much .Net experience they had.

What else do you put on the resume?
You need to state your job objective and mention your specialties. You should summarize the types of jobs you have held as well, your education, and any other salient features that might help you be a good employee. Resumes are often one page. Sometimes you need to have two or three pages. Many readers will not have the patience to read on and on unless the information is absolutely necessary. So, when filling your resume up with facts, ask yourself how important each fact is, and how much is enough. It never hurts to have an industry professional review your resume either.

Past jobs
You need to describe your past jobs, what you did, what particular skills and tasks were necessary. You might even briefly describe what you learned, what you liked, and what you didn’t like. Employers will want to know why you left your previous job too. Terms like personality conflict and boredom are easily understood. However, it might be better to just say that you weren’t happy there. A scheduling conflict is another way to end a job that didn’t include a hostile argument. You might be more popular if you say, “I felt like I wasn’t growing” — as nobody wants to hire someone who gets bored easily or gets into arguments. How you describe why you left or were fired from a past job matters. Your boss will get a very bad impression of you if you quit jobs on a whim or get into arguments with people. They do not want to repeat nightmares that they have had in the past with difficult employees.

How do I document my education?
State what schools you went to and when. What degree did you get? If you are doing outsourcing, it would be very helpful if you attended schools to help with English writing, call center or programming skills. Were there any special areas of focus? What did you major in? Stick to Universities and High School, or whatever the highest two degrees you have earned are. If you went to special trade or music schools, you can list that too to make an impression.

Professional memberships
You might appear more dedicated to your field if you have some professional memberships. These are less critical and should be at the bottom of your resume. It is more impressive to a boss if you actually had some level of participation in these groups. Anyone can be a non-participatory member, but how many help out or actually lead meetings?

Be aware of how others perceive you
Younger people think a lot about what they want. But, rarely think about what the boss wants. Try to realize that the boss just wants someone who gets the job done and doesn’t care how you feel about it. On the other hand, they don’t want someone who won’t like the work either. If you give the impression that you like certain tasks, but don’t like others, you will appear too picky. No employer wants an employee who picks and chooses which tasks he/she does and quits if assigned a task he doesn’t like. It is better to say what you like most, but that you are willing to do all other tasks. I would not talk about what you don’t like to do unless you absolutely can’t stand it. People who run a business have to do all types of tasks they can’t stand — why should you get to pick and choose? Additionally, nobody likes an employee who jumps from job to job. You’ll never rise up the corporate ladder jumping around. Find a profession and company you stick to. If you do a good job, you might get promoted to management which means you get to do a different type of task in the long run even though you were willing to stick to the initial task.

Solutions to India’s transportation problems (2015)

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In 2011 I wrote an article that described my solutions to India’s transportation problems. It was very popular, so I wrote a few subsequent articles on the topic.

2011 version
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/04/10/solutions-to-indias-transportation-problem/#sthash.MBfEQ7t9.dpuf

2014 version
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/08/23/solutions-to-indias-transportation-problems-2014/

The spoke system of transportation for a new Indian city
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2010/09/06/the-spoke-system-of-transportation-for-a-new-indian-city/

India’s main problem is that their level of affluence grew faster than their infrastructure. Roads were designed for bullock carts, not cars and buses. Bus drivers are often rude and drive in a jerky and unfriendly way. If you take the bus, you’ll be squeezed like a sardine, but if you drive a car, you’ll be creating more congestion. There must be a better way.

Downtown Areas
Transportation systems should be created for specific environments. Downtown areas have a very high population density and are ideal for certain types of transportation that wouldn’t be effective in sparely populated areas.

Moving Walkways
Moving walkways are perfect ways for people to get around in busy airports, and downtown areas. There could be enclosed above ground passageways with moving walkways. People could move roughly 8km/hour by walking on these contraptions. At that speed, you could get anywhere in any downtown area in minutes, as well as getting to various railway stations in minute as well.

Tolls For Cars
Instead of creating new systems of transportation, taxing the existing ways make a lot of sense. India has too many cars. Less cars mean that the other vehicles on the road will be able to move more freely. If cars are monopolizing roads, they should pay for that with daily tolls.

A Minibus Network on a Raised Network of Roads
Buses are no fun because they take too long to load, and don’t come frequently enough. However, minibuses are smaller and are fast to load. India is busy building flyovers. However, I believe that the money should be invested in raised roads that travel the length of the city. Minibuses could travel on a web of raised roads around the city traveling at speeds unheard of for cars. The raised roads would have no traffic other than small buses, so 70km/ hour would be possible and your commute might take minutes instead of hours!

Regular Routes for Share Taxis
Share rickshaws are unpleasant to get in an out of not to mention dangerous. But, enlarged golf carts or elongated cars might be very comfortable to travel around the city in. If there were regular stops for share vehicles, that might be a nice way for the middle class to get around.

A New City Built Around Transportation
I like the idea of building completely new cities in India. Tech workers and outsourcing workers might be able to popular these new areas. By creating a new city, you can design the city around the transportation instead of vice versa. You could leave extra space available in case technology changes.

Moving Cubicles?
Imagine a new city where offices are build in such a way that a cubicle could move from someone’s home to the office and be “plugged in.” Yes, this is a crazy idea, but fun. If your cubicle plugged into your home at night, a system could be devised where you could work in your cubicle while the cubicle was moved down the street into a slow cubicle train and to your office where it would get plugged in at exactly the right location. I love crazy ideas, but this is by far the best.

A Live Next to Work System
Let’s say you got a new job downtown. What if a new city in India made it a law that companies had to provide housing for employees within .5 km of work? You could have a flat walking distance from work which means no more traffic. But, what about your spouse and parents. How would they go to work? That is a harder question to answer. And what if companies could set up mini-offices in your neighborhood so you wouldn’t have to go too far. Instead of one huge office, mini-offices. It is an interesting concept.

Industry Specific City Design
Another interesting practical idea for a new city would be laws governing where certain industries could have their offices. If all call centers were in the same area, if you changed jobs, your new job would still be near the old job. If you were a programmer and there was only one IT park, your new job would be nearby.

Parking lots and trains
A new city in India could accommodate many large parking lots near train stations. It is normal for India to always skimp on parking lots and make the parking lot smaller, and more cramped than it needs to be. It should be the opposite if you want people to take the train. Parking lots should be large, easy to maneuver around and pleasant. Fast trains could leave every several minutes from the parking lot going everywhere in the city.

Twin Towers
Imagine a city where there is a huge office building, a beautiful garden, and on the other side a huge residential high rise. If you live in one and work in the other, your commute could be across a bridge going above the park unless you prefer to walk.

Shared Offices
Instead of going halfway across town to work, imagine shared offices. If there were shared offices in all neighborhoods, you could lease a workstation with a computer, desk, phone, and whatever else you needed. Shared offices are becoming a more popular concept in America, Berlin, and even Indonesia these days. They are popular with entrepreneurs, but why shouldn’t they be popular with big businesses? There would be less traffic if people could walk to work.

The Lake City Idea
Imagine a city on a huge lake or by the ocean. You could work on a huge ship. This is a bizarre idea, but a fun one. The ship could move around from port to port in the lake picking up workers while the other workers were busy at work. Cruise ships sort of operate on this principle as you can sleep in them while you move from travel destination to destination.

The Train Office Idea
A similar concept could be created for trains. If your office were on a train that moved very slowly, instead of going to work, you wait for work to come to you, and then jump on. It is a really strange idea, but interesting. Stores could also be on very wide railway tracks and come to you. The office might be on a mag-lev track to avoid friction and might only move two miles per hour. But, you’d never have to commute to work again. I guess during the middle of the day, the office could pick a location to “park” itself while people did their work.

How to start an outsourcing company (2016)

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I wrote an earlier version of how to start an outsourcing company several years ago. I wanted to spruce it up a bit, so here is the new version.

1. Have Extensive Experience
I get emails daily from people who want to start a BPO, or who just got one but lack clients. There is a lot of competition out there and a lot that can go wrong. You need many years of experience in your industry to have a chance at doing well. Additionally, you need to be better at what you do than anyone else, otherwise, why should anyone hire you? I’ve read many articles about entrepreneurships and startups. The point that hit home is that people in their 20’s that want to start businesses have a high failure rate because they lack maturity and experience. A startup might be a new business, but the experience that goes behind it should be old. People tend to do a lot better at entrepreneurship in their 50’s as they are well seasoned, mature, have contacts, and have a ton of experience. I’m not discouraging young people from starting businesses. I started my first business when I was six, and another when I was fourteen. I did okay too and I learned a lot from it. However, I was very immature how I ran many aspects of my business. My businesses had small investments like a lawnmower and a rake. If you are investing in a 20 seat office and salaries, you had better know what you are doing.

2. Get Management Experience
Okay, so you know how to do your job and you worked for the best. There is a lot more to running a business than being a worker. Being a good worker is only one aspect to the endeavor. If you were a good worker, that shows you have the skills and patience to survive in the industry. But, you need to know how to manage expenses, do marketing, hire, fire, train, and assess workers. That requires many years in management to be any good. I recommend that you have at least seven years in management before attempting to create your own BPO.

3. Master your Marketing
As a BPO owner, you won’t survive at all if you don’t have clients. You need to be an expert at marketing. You need to be able to find decision makers at companies around the world to get clients. Some use LinkedIn, others go to networking meetings, while many have agents to help them find clients. You can also subcontract work from other people’s outsourcing operations. Having a great website and promoting it is often the solution while excelling at social media and blogging is a great boone to your business presence.

4. Excel at Customer Retention
If you start an outsourcing company, you will have customers. The difference between a good outsourcing company and a great one is how long you keep your clients. Do you do a good job? Do you keep in touch with clients? Do you help them find new reps quickly if they don’t like the old ones? Are you there for your clients, or do you just use them for money? To do well at outsourcing you need to focus on pleasing clients no matter what. You can’t grow your company if you are always losing your clients.

5. Give Free Samples
I grew my businesses by offering free samples or discounted trials. If you want to attract outsourcing clients, give them a chance to try your work with no contracts and low prices. They will be seven times as likely to give you a chance if you give them something for free or half price. If you do a good job, you might win them over for life. So you get by giving.

6. Offer Liberal Terms
Most outsourcing companies want people to sign rigid contracts that enslave them to stringent terms. Personally, I don’t want to sign a contract with a stranger. The contract ensures that I will pay a certain quantity of dollars each month. However, the contracts never ensure the quality of the service that I am getting. If I get poor service, can I pay with low quality dollars? Dollars are dollars, but no two services are the same. My suggestion is to have easy contracts in the beginning going week to week or month to month with very small deposits. Let the client get comfortable with you before you get demanding.

7. Have Clearly Defined Specialties
There is nothing worse than a call center that is not clear about what they do. Some do telemarketing, others do chat support, while a few do appointment setting. You never really know how good they are at any of their specialties. It is easier when there is a list of specialties in the “services” page of their website. That way you can be sure they do chat support — unless they stopped doing it three years ago and removed it from their site. If you claim to specialize in something, make sure you have multiple workers trained in it so a client can always get someone.

8. Flexible Office Space
Some call centers start with a huge office and then try to get clients. Many of them end up with huge losses from miscalculating how much space they need. It is better to have a flexible system for getting office space. Start small, and don’t get a big office until you have stable clients who are not going to end their relationships with you on a whim. If your workers are divided between two buildings, that is not the best, but it is temporary and you will have to deal with that as your company grows. Some offices offer shared spaces where you can rent space by the day, week, or month. Those would be excellent resources for a startup that doesn’t know how much space it will need.

9. Offer Training To Your Workers
Most BPO companies do not invest enough in training their workers. If you care about success, be like some of the top rate call centers and monitor your workers daily. Train them constantly. Make sure your workers are the best. I am tired of calling outsourcing companies only to hear them say, “hullo” when they answer. This is very unprofessional. If that is how the managers answer the phone, their workers are almost guaranteed to be horrible. If you aren’t professional yourself, how can you possibly train your workers to be?

10. Have Marketing Managers & Floor Managers
To grow your company, you can’t be two places at the same time. You need someone to manage the workers as well as someone to handle marketing and sales. If you hire people who aren’t loyal to you, you might be left high and dry. So, you might have primary managers and a few backups who you are constantly training.

11. Reward Worker Loyalty
You can’t build a good business with disloyal employees. Businesses that do well have a core of people who have been with them for ten or twenty years. You need to make sure you treat your star employees like stars. They deserve more money, better conditions, and appreciation. If you take them for granted you’ll lose them. Mediocre workers are dime a dozen — they are replaceable. But, you can’t build a business with them. Stars are the framework of your future success. Find them and find a way to keep loyal and talented people, otherwise your business will be tiny forever — or worse — it might be a collection of 50 dysfunctional nitwits!

Summary
I wish you good luck in business. But, the worst thing you can do in business is to go too fast. Get your foundation in order before creating a business. If you are not already a marketing genius, you’ll never survive. If you have to ask me how to get clients, you’re in the wrong field altogether. Additionally, I would like to add that the call center business is one that many Indians want to start. This type of business is almost exclusively being done outside of India. Even Indian companies are hiring Filipinos to do their call center work since the manners in India are very unpolished. Try to focus on an outsourcing specialty that caters to the talents of the workforce where you are. Indians are better at accounting and technical support than call center work. Keep that fact in mind as it can make you or ruin you! Good luck!

You might also like:

Six problems that only someone working in a BPO company would understand
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/06/15/six-problems-that-only-individuals-working-in-a-bpo-industry-would-understand/

Marketing your BPO firm from A to Z
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/05/22/marketing-your-bpo-outsourcing-firm-from-a-to-z/

If you invested in training your BPO workers, what types of skills would you teach them?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/03/28/if-you-invested-in-training-your-bpo-employees-what-types-of-skills-would-you-teach-them/

See our 2011 version of how to start an outsourcing company!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/04/24/how-to-start-an-outsourcing-company/

Why your sitar & tabla lessons are the most important training for business

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We all want to succeed in business. Unfortunately, many people who aspire to create a startup lack the discipline or skills to be able to succeed. Many people want to have a huge success in a short period of time. They want to take a magic pill and have something miraculous happen in their business. In real life business success is built on a foundation. Without that foundation, your business will crumble. But, how can you build that foundation?

Bad English = Bad Work Skills
So many people email me using incorrect grammar saying, “Give me job.” Or they email me without knowing how to spell my name. How can you succeed in doing complicated outsourcing tasks when you can’t even spell English correctly? If you do data entry and there are formatting issues with the email you sent me, why would I believe you could do data entry? If you do programming, but there are syntax errors in your email you sent me, then there will be syntax errors in your programming too. To do well in business you need discipline, refinement, and skill. But, how can you develop these? Children of the upper-middle class typically take music lessons to develop exactly these types of skills which benefits them for the rest of their lives. Those who study music typically do well as doctors, attorneys, business people, and in other professions as well.

Sitar Lessons Teach Discipline
To learn to play the sitar or any other musical instrument requires years of arduous practice. Practicing requires extreme patience and can also be physically taxing. Beginners typically make their musical instrument sound horrible while Yo Yo Ma can make even the most inexpensive cello sound like a million bucks. Learning to play the sitar is a little like learning to grow a business. It takes two decades to become good at the sitar. It can take two decades to learn to become good at business. There are so many factors involved in being a good business person. There is management, marketing, human resources, finance, and more. If you are weak in any one of these aspects, you will lose everything. Basically, if you have the discipline to master the sitar, you’ll have the discipline and sensitivity to master anything.

Listening Skills
The study of any musical instrument including sitar or tabla requires listening. Listening involves paying attention. If you are not trained to pay attention, your business won’t do well. If you don’t return emails because you are lazy or not paying attention, you’ll lose prospective clients. I generally am the one to have to chase people down to get them to finish their work and return emails. It is ironic that people in industries who are begging for work won’t even return an email. If you have a musical background, you will realize right away when your call center agents are talking to loudly, softly, unclearly, or with the wrong tone. Your sitar lessons will make you more sensitive to subtle differences in tone which can help you in any business — except perhaps the concrete laying business or mafia related jobs. Additionally, in business you have to listen to what the client wants. If you only think about what you want, you’ll lose the client. Being sensitive and aware of your clients’ needs is one of the components to your ticket to success in business. Sensitivity can be learned through sitar or tabla lessons.

Timing
If you play music with others, timing is critical. If the pianist plays several notes, and the violinist is supposed to respond with a few other notes, the music will fall apart if the violinist is late. In business, I have programmers and call centers do tasks for me. The problem is that I have to bug them or I never hear from them. If they had a sitar playing background, they would respond right away. You also need to be able to coordinate the timing of small and large projects. You can imagine how difficult it is to coordinate computer projects involving a dozen or more programmers. Their work needs to synchronize with the other programmers or the entire project will be a failure. If one of the programmers drops out, the project will be done late as well.

Sensitivity
Listening skills lead to sensitivity. But, sensitivity can also apply to business analytics. I analyze stats all the time. However, when I really look more deeply, sometimes I’ll discover patterns in the data that I never noticed before. This cannot happen without sensitivity, inquisitiveness and attention. If your employees show signs that they are not interested, if you are not sensitive, you might not pick up on those signs. Knowing when to fire someone, or when to watch someone is a critical skill in business. If you have been in business for a long time, it becomes intuitive and natural. But, you need to develop a sensitivity within you to be able to see people lose interest. Once an employee loses interest, their work will suffer and then they usually quit. Catch this trend before it happens!

Accuracy
Many companies hire employees who don’t get their work done on time, give wrong answer to questions, quit at the critical moment, etc. In music, if there is even one wrong note, the entire performance is ruined. In business, most companies make multiple mistakes all day long. Having a sitar or tabla playing background can help you be a much better business person by helping you to train yourself to be accurate — and rhythmical! If your business is accurate while the others are not, you have a better chance to grow by leaps and bounds.

Classically trained musicians earn more
The average person in the United States makes about $40,000 per year. When you talk to them they just seem average — partly because they are average. People who play classical music as a hobby typically make around $120,000 per year average — and are more “in tune” as well. They are often professors, doctors, attorneys, researchers, and sometimes music teachers as well (the music teachers don’t make that much, but the doctors typically do.) So, one could say that studying classical music as a child can triple your income as an adult. I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison, but there is some truth to it.

The myth that classical music isn’t sexy
Many people think that classical musicians are very prudish and straight. There is some truth to this fallacy. However, many musical instruments have a G-string, and there is nothing as sexy as one of those! On the other hand, if you play the sitar, that involves playing a drone — that is okay just as long as you also don’t talk like a drone (or have one deliver pizza.)

Summary
The moral of this article is that studying classical music helps you to refine, perfect, listen, be sensitive, and be on time. These traits will help you in anything you pursue in life — especially business. So, if your business is doing well, or not doing so well, I’m sure it would do better if you dust off your sitar that’s sitting in the closet and start taking lesson. And if you don’t like the sitar, play the veena.

“I’m Ravi Shankar and I approve of this message!”

Is it fair that American jobs are outsourced to India? (2015)

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In America, the debate over outsourcing has raged on for decades. Americans are outraged that their jobs are outsourced overseas; while companies are outraged that they can’t find suitable labor resources at a sustainable rate in America. So, who is right, who is wrong and why?

What goes up must come down
When America loses jobs, it is normally because there are not enough quality people available to do those jobs. Many manufacturing jobs went to China, Honduras, Vietnam and other countries simply because labor was so expensive, unreliable, and temperamental in the United States. Additionally, labor unions made it cost prohibitive to manufacture automobiles in the United States which nearly put many American car manufacturers out of business. For decades there were endless disputes between labor and management which were very disturbing and costly. Many manufacturers decided it would be easier to relocate somewhere where people actually wanted to work without all the hostility. However, despite tens of millions of American jobs being outsourced overseas, unemployment has been generally 5-10% over the years. Additionally, we are so short of labor, that we rely on a constant influx of Latin Americans and other immigrants to help do all types of jobs. America has a labor shortage, and no matter how many jobs are offshored, there will still be a labor shortage. Additionally, jobs sent overseas gain American currency as payment, and that payment comes back to us in the form of purchases of agricultural exports, toiletries, and other products. If you visit India, everything in their small stores seems to be made in America — you’ll recognize Tide, Head and Shoulders, Snickers and hundreds of other brand names.

If America starts really hurting…
Americans often want manufacturing to come back to the states. What they don’t realize is that for economic conditions to be ripe for manufacturing to come back, our labor rate would have to come down to $3 per hour. America would have to be in a permanent economic depression for labor rates to ever be that low. With the recent mass influx of Latin Americans into the United States, labor rates have been going down. Hispanics have a higher birth rate than Anglos and normally do labor intensive jobs which means that future labor rates in the U.S. will be very low as we will have a huge labor pool of Hispanics. Additionally, with technology and robotics becoming so developed in America, we will be able to compete with China for the first time in recent history. Chinese workers are not as efficient as American workers, and lack the robotics to help them decrease labor costs. It seems clear to me that tech-aided manufacturing is already making a comeback in the United States and could continue to prosper as labor rates in China rise.

What about programming jobs?
It is very difficult to find a programmer in the U.S. Most programmers are overloaded and there is a vast shortage of qualified programmers in America and overseas. It is common for programmers to leave jobs undone as other jobs come onto their plate. You might feel that is irresponsible, and you are correct. But, the work ethic and integrity today is not like it was years ago. This is part of the reason jobs are outsourced to India. Conversely, the level of responsibility or quality of work in India is dismal. There are some good programmers, but nine out of ten are not. Hourly rates and availability are where India can really compete against the U.S. After you factor in how little they get done per hour, and how much of the work is so sloppy that it needs to be completely redone — it no longer looks like a bargain.

Americans need to compete
Americans feel entitled to make a huge salary. Additionally, many Americans have a real attitude problem, ego, and are hard to manage. People in India are happy to work for less. An IT job is their ticket out of slums so miserable, you wouldn’t be able to stand even walking through one. When you see the level of desperation in India, you will see how Americans need to be a little more motivated to compete.

Call center jobs went to India and took a U-turn
Americans are always resentful that so many call center jobs went to India. Then Americans were once again dismayed that the quality of the call center employees in India really horrifying. The Indians got their karmic payback and most of their call center work was redirected to the Philippines. Even companies in India often outsource their call center work to Manila as the quality of the reps and the clarity of their English is so much better. Is it fair that Indian jobs are being outsourced to the Philippines? I don’t hear Indians wailing about this type of thing. They are too busy finding other ingenious ways of taking “our” jobs.

There is no “our”
There is no such thing as an American job. The job belongs to the employer. If an employer hires lousy workers, they will soon lose their business. In real life a company cannot just outsource any job wherever they want. They have to be very particular about the quality of the work being done. If the work is terrible, they lose a very expensive client and their reputation.

Does anyone want to work?
Ironically, I have been trying to outsource some call center work myself. However, nobody is emailing me back. I offered to pay more than their fee, but wanted to interview the workers myself just to make sure they were good. I guess people want me to sign a year long contract and hope for the best when it comes to figuring out which rep I get. Well, I am not going to guess anymore. I’m doing the work myself and automizing the rest. Now, “American” jobs are being done by an auto-caller. I think that my personal story is ironic — foreigners don’t even care if they get “our” jobs, and I don’t see any Americans begging to do my lousy calls either. In reality, it seems that nobody wants to work. No wonder companies outsource overseas. You can get someone who doesn’t want to work at a quarter of the price.