Author Archives: 123outsource

Top employees get poached

May 8, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Top employees regularly get poached

This is a common theme in India, where highly skill employees are a commodity that companies will die for — or poach for.  One of the recent episodes of the television comedy “Outsourced” was based on the theme of poaching call center employees.  Someone got laid off at the call center, and someone new needed to be hired. There was a line of two-hundred people, but only one was well qualified, and was hired immediately.  This new employee was of Indian ancestry, but grew up in Texas and understood the American culture and American expressions well which made him a dream employee.  Unfortunately the girlfriend of the manager of the call center also liked this new employee and offered him double the salary.  The manager, Todd, who first hired this Texas raised dream call center employee decided to get even. Todd and his friend, a manager from American Hunter, found a way to get into his girlfriend’s office, find the resume and  salary information for the new employee, and forwarded it to another fancy company who was in the same building.  The fancy company who had very well trained workers who showed up in suits and had snooty attitudes quickly swallowed this new employee and got him in uniform immediately — a suit and a mobile phone which is permanently glued to his ear.

Outsourced is America’s most interesting and endearing television comedy, but the theme of poaching employees is a nightmare for Indian bosses.  India’s economy is growing so fast, that employees are getting better and better offers by the day.  Its common in places like Bangalore and Mumbai for employees to jump from company to company.  If they have a job at one company in Koramangala at a particular salary, they might jump to another company in Whitefield because they have a nicer looking office, better benefits, or nicer females working there.  If you heard the reasons why employees jump boat in this employees market, your jaw would drop.

It is expensive to interview, hire, and train new employees.  If an employee is so bad they need to be fired, or jumps boat prematurely, this causes a huge loss to the boss.  It makes more sense for the boss to think ahead.  If you hire someone good, its like having a really good looking girlfriend. You will not be the only one who likes her, and your offer is not likely to be the best offer either.  If the girl is not the loyal type, and girls these days rarely are, then she will quickly wander off with some guy who offers her more.  It makes sense to pamper a good employee.

Get to know them?  Sure!  If you get to know a good employee, and develop a good personal relationship with them, they will feel happier in that environment and be more likley to stay.  This is true with customers too. It pays to get to know your customers.  Don’t spend all day with them, but a simple phone call makes all the difference.  Give them some freedom.  If your star employee needs to have a dental appointment during business hours, let them go!  Just have them make up the hours some other time.  As long as they are on schedule, let them work from home a day or two per week two.  Find out what they like, and cater to them.  It might take a bit of research, but its easier than hiring someone new which costs lakhs in lost productivity! Giving raises every three months makes sense too.  Having regular evaluations costs money, but is cheaper than losing employees to poachers.  Or, giving employees an incentive plan giving them a percentage of their output. If the market is growing fast, their percentage will grow fast too.

Caring for your star employees will reduce poaching by leaps and bounds.  People today are obsessed with numbers and overworking.  This is important.  But, caring about relationships is even more important. Business is based on relationships.  People will spend money on a service provider they know and trust.  Nobody wants to do business with a stranger in any country.  People want to leave business relationships where the personal relationship is not good.  Emotions speak louder than rupees.

The authoritarian culture.  India and Arab countries have a very authoritarian culture.  Bosses often like to treat their employees as lesser and employees traditionally have to bow down to their employers.  As an American, I think that class and position is overemphasized in India.  It seems like it would be more helpful if less emphasis was put on position, and bosses treated their star employees with the same care they might a family member.  I am by no means suggesting that the boss let the employee run all over them, but a caring attitude without compromising authority seems like a super idea to me!

123outsource.net’s growth

May 7, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

123outsource.net’s growth

123outsource.net outsource directory is growing, but not the way we thought.   When 123outsource was created, we thought we would cater mainly to India with a strong presence in South Africa, Philippines, Argentina, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as an outsourcing directory.  The surprising fact is that Filipino call centers and other companies in the Philippines did not respond to our internet presence.  Pakistan and Bengladesh responded, but in a way that was far less efficient than  was necessary to continue advertising in those areas.  Additionally, South Africa and Argentina did not respond well to our web presence.

Countries that responded well
We always knew that India would be the star of the show, and Indian outsourcing companies respond very well to us. We get new sign ups from Indian companies daily.  But, the other countries that responded well to us was a surprize.  United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Singapore are some of the lead countries that use our site.  We got some good responses from Costa Rica as well.  Singapore is our leading browser country with browser volume that surpassed the United States on many weeks.  They did so well, that we separated Singapore from our regular advertising campaign, so that we could manage them more carefully. But, why do these particular countries do so well with us?  I believe its because they have huge populations of Indian nationals who are closely tied to the motherland.  America has many Indians too, but our Indians have business or jobs that are not connected to India.  Our Deshis are tied to the local economy.

Turkey anyone?
We have just started marketing outsourcing services in Turkey.  Turkey has many startup call centers and other BPO operations, primarily in Istanbul.  We are not sure if they will respond well to our advertising, but we will see.  Advertising in India averages one sign up for every 300 clicks, so it will take another month to see if Turkey gets a sign up in its first 300 clicks.

China, the next frontier.
China is huge, and will overtake India in the Software outsourcing niche by 2015 according to current trends.  Unfortunately, the Chinese have never been as linguistically adept as the Indians, so communicating with them is not always easy.  We will see if China responds well to our new advertising presence for software outsourcing and other specialties.  We got 10 clicks from China on our first day of advertising, so we expect the click volume to be higher as time goes on, and as the next business week begins. We hope that many companies in China will sign up to be on our directory.

Costa Rica
Most people don’t even know where Costa Rica is.  Its a tiny country in Central America with a thriving web design and call center industry. We will start advertising there shortly.   The language difference is an issue though. The national language of Costa Rica is Spanish, and we speak English.  Luckily, I have a staff member who speaks very clear Spanish as a second language, but our ads are in English, and the search terms we advertise for are in English to.  We could try to use a few Spanish terms and see how it goes. We did that for Argentina, but with no lucky. Argentinians are talented in art, but not in business unfortunately.

How to get more clients for your call center

May 5, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Comments

Getting more clients for your call center part 1
 
Call centers are everywhere!
There are many call centers throughout the world.  The United States and Canada are filled with them.  The Philippines is the most popular outsourcing location for call centers, while Kenya and South Africa offer a good command of British English and are in the same time zone as Europeans.  But… not all call centers are created equal.  Many new companies want more clients, but they don’t know where to start.
 
It’s about relationships!
BPO Companies typically get business because they have the right contacts. No contacts; No contracts; But, how do you get connections when you don’t know anyone? A call center might know a potential client, or could be referred to a client from someone who knows them.  Often, they will know other people in the business, who give them their overflow or take a commission on BPO business sent their way.  But, what if you are sitting in a building in Navi Mumbai, or Cebu, and you see others succeeding in the call center business when your phone is not ringing with interested prospective clients?
 
How do you get to know people when you don’t know anyone?
We all start out with empty Rolodexes in this life unless we are born into the right family.
But, how many of us are born into a well connected family?  I’m from America which is a meritocracy. Your success is still based heavily on “who you know”, but we generally are not born with good connections like the upper class British or Indian families might have.  We make it based on merit and hustling — otherwise we don’t make it.  Some of us are talented, while others are average but work harder than our competitors.  In America, many of my friends were from affluent families, but didn’t have the drive or dedication to achieve, and they are working for minimum wage in many cases.  By the same token, many people who were raised in slums are now prospering.  So, get out there and hustle and get to know people. You can meet prospects through cold calling, Linked In, networking meetings, or through existing contacts.
 
Getting to know people
If you want to drum up BPO business, you have to contact companies who might be able to use your service, as well as contacting competitors. Competitors might be able to refer you jobs that they don’t want or don’t have time for. They might charge a commission for offering you work. You could get to know agents and brokers as well, but be careful as many of them charge up front and don’t deliver! You can get listed on outsourcing directories and have a broad social media presence as well. In terms of contacting prospective clients, who do you call, when, and where? Pounding the payment is on my perpetual to do list — my company contacts 400 new companies per month every month, on schedule at the beginning of the month whether we need new clients or not, just to keep the momentum going.
 
Email
Email is a wonderful tool, and it has its place in society. It’s a very practical way to contact people who already know you and are happy (smiley face or not) to hear from you.  However, if you send emails to strangers that are trying to sell them something, you will get ignored.  If you use email to contact people, you might get a 0-1% return rate if you offer them some sort of free trial period. If it is just an introduction to your company, you will be ignored 9999 out of 10,000 emails which makes the whole process futile. Writing to a specific contact person and perceptively addressing their unique needs increases the chance of you getting noticed 100 fold!
 
Cold Calling
Calling companies is a royal pain in the neck. It’s often like pulling teeth to reach the decision maker, and each phone call can carve 10 minutes out of your day only to be put on hold and then ultimately rejected.  Phone calls are tedious, so plan on having someone who is patient and dedicated to manning this essential lifeline. On a brighter note, a dedicated caller can realistically reach up to 30 decision makers on a busy day of cold calling.
 
Meeting people’s needs
The mentality that separates a salesman from a pest is their ability to anticipate their prospective client’s needs.  If you call someone trying to force your service down their unwilling throat, you will have wasted your call.  Even if they need your service, they won’t like your style.  If you are polite, make nice conversation, and ask them about their needs, you will get your foot in the door.  My experience has shown that a female with a nice voice, an even nicer personality, and a good technical understanding of call center work will excel at this type of cold-calling.  Gentleness and suave are the keys that open the doors. On the other hand, my personal experience running my own call operations is that a man with a very feminine voice is just as effective as a girl.  My best caller was a guy with a folksy high voice, and everyone liked “her”.  I hired him to offer free listings on one of my directories, and he got seven listings per hour, while the other male caller averaged only four! Of course — everybody thought that he was a she!!!
 
Smoothness and getting to know people
People hire other people they know. Its not about what BPO company you work for, or even what company they work for.  If a person at a particular company likes a person at another company and gets to know them, you establish trust. Trust = Sales or at least has the potential to lead to sales.  People entrust their money to people they like and trust. If your salesgirl cannot only sell, but makes great chit-chat with the decision makers, they will develop a type of relationship with your company.  In five minutes, you went from a non-relationship, to having a warm and fuzzy relationship. You are no longer doing a cold-sell now. You are working in a warm market.  Your sales girl melted the proverbial ice!!! One sales lady conveys such charm, that clients who have never laid eyes on her are regularly sending her flowers. When you interview your salesgirl, ask how many flowers her clients sent her on her last job. There’s your clue as to how successful she will be!
 
Free samples
Many people are stingy and selfish and don’t want to give away even a minute of their time for free. But, if you are starting out, you have to establish a reputation. If nobody knows you, then the only fast way to GET people to know you is to offer a few hours of work at either no cost, or at a reduced cost if the person will commit to a contract once they are satisfied.  If you have a star employee who will impress your potential clients, you will gain many others from offering free work. Not all of them will hire you. But, always remember that business is about relationships, ideally long term ones. If you sacrificed a few hours of a star employee’s time, but got a client who stuck with you for twenty years and referred you to ten other companies who used you, do you feel that your sacrifice was worth it? You give away a penny, and get a million in return. I like that exchange very much.

Have a professional web site
People judge a book by its cover and a web site by its professionalism. A professional web site that clearly states all of your specialties and contact information will attract business, especially if it is easy to find on Google. Please see our article about having a professional web site for your business.

Pay-Per-Click
An astute web marketer will be an expert at using pay-per-click programs. Google’s adwords is the most effective in this category. Pick the keywords and keyword variations that are well targeted to your business and geographical terms mixed with professional terms, i.e. “Bangalore Web Design”. Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-In also have PPC programs that can help you grow your social media presence quickly and effectively providing that you have popular content. Going to a $100 party wearing a $3 shirt is the equivalent of spending hundreds promoting poorly written blogs or web pages. Write good content and promote it using PPC. However, you should track your results and terminate promotions that don’t yield positive results. Using PPC involves a lot of trial and error, so try many approaches and keep your eyes open. Please read our article on Pay-Per-Click promotion of call centers.

Summary
Hire a nice girl who makes smooth conversation, knows her technical stuff, and can anticipate her prospective client’s needs.  Get to know companies and offer them a certain amount of free work if you think they are serious. That way, they will be confident about working with you in the future since they had a good experience with your company.  On the other hand, if you hire the worst staff, your free sample will just be a waste, because nobody wants to work with a rotten bunch of employees!!

Stay tuned for part 2 of getting call center work.  You will see a completely different point of view on marketing in that blog entry.

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You might also like:

How to get more clients for your call center (compilation)
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/20/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-bpo-or-call-center-compilation/

How to get clients for call center — contracts!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/05/how-to-get-clients-for-call-centers-contracts/

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

How to find clients for call centers — good salespeople
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/08/how-to-find-clients-for-call-centers-good-salespeople/

How to get more clients for your call center — get an agent!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/14/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-call-center-get-an-agent/

How to get more clients for your call center using Pay-Per-Click
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/01/how-to-gain-clients-for-your-call-center-pay-per-click/

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Tweets:
(a) When it comes to business, it is about who you know.
How well do you know yourself?
(b) In business it is about who you know. How well do you hustle to get to know new people?
(c) In business, it is not who you know — it is who knows you and thinks highly of you.
(d) Get to know prospective clients by calling them.
Interact with existing clients by emailing them.
(e) Emailing prospective clients has a really low response rate. Ask your Nigerian uncle. Try cold-calling prospects.

(f) Hire the right girl to talk to decision makers & they will develop a warm & fuzzy relationship w/your company.
(g) 1 sales lady conveys such charm: clients who’ve never seen her regularly send her flowers.
(h) When u interview a salesgirl, ask how many flowers her clients sent her on her last job. There’s your clue as to how successful she will be!
(i) The best things in life are free. Give a free sample to a prospect, do great work, and win a client!

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New Signups are Coming in Fast

May 4, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New signups are coming in fast
 
123outsource.net is relatively new as an outsource directory, and just started being promoted in November. At first, sign ups were very far and few between.  We would get inquiries from people wanting a job, and a few inquiring about the directory, but hardly any signups.  Then, after a while ,we started getting more serious inquiries after we had been around a bit longer. The breakthrough was ridiculously simple. We added a sign up form instead of asking people to email us.  Sign ups tripled overnight on our outsource directory.  We highlighted the sign up button with red.
 
Sign up today!
If you want to sign up to be on our offshore outsource directory, we offer free listings to any serious outsourcing company.  We get hundreds of visitors daily from Singapore, USA, Canada, UK, and many other countries, so companies who need your services will be able to find you.
 
Categories
Our most popular categories are Data Entry, Call Center, Accounting, Programming, Medical Transcriptions, and Medical Billing.  Up and coming categories are LPO, Web Design, SEO, and KPO.  BPO is a strange category because every type of outsourcing is in a sense a BPO, but because we have such specific categories, we use the BPO category more as a miscellaneous category.
 
Countries
India is by far the most serious country, with Pakistan in second place.  We have yet to have any signups from the Philippines, South Africa, Bengladesh, or Nepal.  To my happy surprize, we got on call center in Costa Rica.  Lets hope we get more Latin American companies on board!
 
Placement
We are happy to give free listings away, but to get ahead in your internet presence, we recommend having a listing in two or more categories with high placement. Browsers tend to search from the top of the list on down.  Just ask us what we charge for higher placement and we’ll give you a customized quote.
 
Future
What is the future of our directory?  We have more than ten years in the internet directory business, so we are very familiar with the evolution and optimization of websites.  We are actively promoting our twitter and blog which help in promiting our site.  Additionally, we are always working on optimization and our pay-per-click search networks too which gives us fantastic exposure which is only going to get better.  The more listings we have, the better we will show up on search engines.

Interesting pages on 123outsource.net

May 2, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Interesting pages on 123outsource.net

123outsource.net is a growing and interesting BPO directory.  The main offering we have is good search results for outsourcing companies in many categories throughout the world, particularly in India.  But, we offer more.  We offer a wide variety of blog posts, a twitter profile, and many resource pages.  This entry will introduce some of our more interesting pages on our BPO directory.

Sign up page
http://www.123outsource.net/user_signup.php
This page enables any company anywhere in the world to sign up to be on our directory.  We scrutinize all applications to weed out those that are not companies. We get many individuals seeking employment, but we regret to inform them that we are not  in a position to hire them (even if they could spell correctly which is never the case).  We generally won’t post anyone’s information unless they have a legitimate web site too.  A company without a web site is a losing proposition in my web-centric mind.

About us page
http://www.123outsource.net/aboutus.php
This page tells about how we started out, what programmers we use, and how I visited India many times to get this operation going.  The about us page of 123notary.com is also interesting as it tells how I got into the web business to begin with.

BPO, KPO, LPO Outsourcing
http://www.123outsource.net/BPO_KPO_LPO_Outsourcing.php
This page not only has a lot of information about BPO companies, but also has many links to additional resource materials at the bottom of the page.

Data Entry Jobs
http://www.123outsource.net/data_entry_faq.php
Find out where you can get data entry jobs, BPO, and call centre jobs. This is a FAQ page, so there is a lot of question and answer material here.

Data Entry Glossary
http://www.123outsource.net/data_entry_outsourcingglossary.php
This section is still in the works as of 4-03-2011, but will be completed at the end of April for sure.  We have definitions of many data entry and transcription terms of which there are many.  I’m not sure if this page will be at all popular, but it is generally good in the web business to have a lot of free resource materials, so you will look useful.

Social Media
http://www.123outsource.net/Social_Media.php
This page explains how to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to expand your business’ exposure.  The positive attributes of social media including “real time interaction”, democracy, and exposure are discussed.  Find out what makes social media tick.

Web Design Information
http://www.123outsource.net/web_design_resources.php
This page has basic information about internet jobs, and what web design involves, picking a company, and more. At the bottom of the page, there is a link to even more information.

Data Entry India
http://www.123outsource.net/1data_entry_india.php
This is our fastest growing page.  We get more data entry companies signing up with us, than any other category. Some prefer to be listed on our BPO India page, but most stay on the data entry India page.

BPO India
http://www.123outsource.net/1bpo_india.php
This is our second most popular content page on the directory.  India is the most popular country to look for a BPO, so if you run a BPO company, sign up with us on our BPO directory ASAP, so you can get exposure to find new clients!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have your office in the Himalayas?

April 27, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: India, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Working in the himalayas

Every day I see people working hard in congested cities, breathing bad air, and under a lot of stress.  Sometimes I think, wouldn’t it be nice to have an office in the Himalayas?  Sure, its hard to run a business from Dehradun, or Darjeeling, but what if employees could have a two week “Workation” where they could work, and then enjoy tours.  It would be a nice breather to get out of their Software company in Bangalore, or their Mumbai call center.

Travel rejuvinates
Personally, I find it stressful to be in the same place too long. I need to move around.  But, sometimes its fun to do your regular work, in a place that is not regular for you. Imagine being in a cabin in the woods with good internet connectivity, and you could work from there.  You would have lunch in a completely different place and see different sites, feel a different feeling, and meet different people. Its very refreshing, and good for worker morale.

The vibe in different places
One thing to consider is that the vibrations in different parts of the world is very striking. I’m speaking of metaphysical vibrations that you sense, but don’t necessarily “feel”.   Some places are lazy places, where you will feel lazy upon entering. Some are frenetic, where its hard to concentrate. Others have an adventurous energy, where you will want to hike in the wilderness.  For working, its good to have a place where you can concentrate and have a lot of drive too. Sometimes, if you are in a downtown of a big city like Mumbai, Los Angeles, or Bangalore, you will feel driven to work all the time, because that energy is in the environment.  But, what about the mountains?

Are the mountains good for work, or only for spirituality?
When people think of the Himalayas, they think of a mystical place where you might want to meditate, or go on a long hike with a sherpa and eat some Nepali mo-mo dumplings. Parts of the himalayas are considered the best places in the world to meditate because the atmosphere is so light metaphysically.  Deeper meditations will be easier there.  Since there is not much going on, there is no influx of work or stress vibrations in the mountains.   No wars have been fought there, so there is no vibration of murder either.  But, can people concentrate and get lots of work done in the mountains?  The answer is that it depends on the mountains.  I have been to many mountains and some of them have a good work energy, while others have a lazy energy.
 

The only way to assess is to spend a few days in a place and see how you feel.  Do you feel like working or not?

Building an office
I think it would be wonderful to have companies building offices in the mountains.  Employees could spend a month per year up there in shifts and enjoy clean air and a good environment while they did their software, accounting, legal outsourcing, or whatever other job they did.  This would be expensive to build and transport people, so it would be for higher skilled staff members.  I think that an office with beautiful views of trees, landscapes, and people who can bring you samosas and chai would be perfect.  Dormatories could be walking distance from the offices, to allow more time to focus on work and other activities.

My only regret
I just hope that building offices in the mountains doesn’t disturb the metaphysical vibration of the place.  Sometimes its better to enjoy a place for what it is without implanting your own “stress-trons”, or other non-physical forms of pollution.  Garbage and chemical pollution are equally serious and detremental, so lets keep the world clean, especially the mountains.  On the other hand, maybe offices in the mountains would build a harmony of productivity and the nurturing essense of nature.

How to Start an Outsourcing Company

April 24, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

How to start an outsourcing company

To start a BPO, Call Center, or Data Entry outsourcing company, you will need a lot of skills.

Be an expert in your field
You need to be an expert at your field, so that you can supervise work and know who to hire. If you know nothing about data entry, and have no clients, nobody will hire you, because you don’t know anything. People want to hire responsible experts, so if you are not an expert, please become one.

Get clients
How do you get clients?  Many people tell me they want to start a 20 seater BPO, but they are asking me how to get clients.  My advise is start with one seat, and then when you get more clients, get more seats.  The clients come before the seats.  No clients = being out of business. If you are asking me how to get business, you are really in trouble, because I am not in the call center business — I’m in the directory business with 10 years of experience.

Contact other call centers or data entry companies and see if they have any advice or overflow.
Contact call centers or other outsourcing outfits in America by phone and ask them if they need your services.
Contact companies in India by phone and ask if they need your services. Create a beautiful website and advertise on web directories
Facebook can sometimes be a great way to market a business too, as it is a way to network with more and more computer literate people.

Have a decisive offering
If you want to create a call center, but don’t know what you are offering, you will sound uneducated to your potential clients.  Figure out what types of services you offer, and then figure out what type of price categories to assign your various services. My advice is focus on being flexible and helpful if you want to attract lots of business. The other call centers are rigid, and half of them want to cheat their new clients. In the long run, the helpful and responsible companies win the game!

Free trials – am I crazy?
If you want to offer people free trials, thats even better.  Many companies will be skeptical about using a new outsourcing company who they never heard of before.  If you have an amateurish phone manner, they will question whether you even are a business, or some unemployed guy who is desperate for work.  If you offer a few hours of free trial work, so that the client company can test you out and get comfortable with you, you might win over some good long term contracts.

Short contracts or no contracts
Established call centers have a reputation and contacts. They can demand six month contracts for at least three seats and get away with it. If you are starting off, its best to let companies try you out for a short time and see if they like you.  It will be hard to get long
contracts when nobody has ever heard of you before.

Equipment?
This is not my industry, so you have to ask other local call centers what they use.  You need good computers and good phone connections for all of your seats. You will need to ask local utility companies what type of connections they can offer and how reliable they are. VoIP is popular these days, but thats all I know.

A place of business
If you have no clients, and want to get a 15 seater office, how do you intend to pay salaries and rent for fifteen people, when you have not a single client, and no knowledge of how to get a client.  Find a real estate broker, and find a small place to start off in while you get your business acumen  in ship shape condition.  Start small and learn the business is you are starting a BPO

How do I start a call center or outsourcing business?
Have a database of people in the area who can work part time.  Lots of ladies with kids don’t want a full time job.  Interview these people, make sure they can function well, and try them out on small projects. While you are doing your outreach calls, you will hopefully get a few contracts.  Hire these part time folks when you have work, and if the work dries up, they can go back home to their family life.  They can be your “on call” staff members.  One week you might be very busy, and the next week you might have hardly any work at all.  Once you develop some long term clients who are comfortable with you and your services, then you will have regular work, and can think about that 15 seater office.  Don’t jump ahead of yourself though.

Training?
Being a small company doesn’t mean you are worse than anyone else. You might have less resources, but you might have more caring!  If you have a system of overseeing your workers and coaching them so they can be their best, you might really impress your clients.  Obviously, you should start out with workers who have good skills, but refining their skills, and customizing their skills to the needs of specific clients will win you tremendous popularity and customer loyalty. You have to be on top of your workers, or they will not function optimally, and you will lose your business.

Where do I advertise my company?
Advertise on www.123outsource.net.  We offer free and paid advertising for all types of outsourcing companies.  Advertise in our Call Center, BPO, Data Entry, Software, or any other category.

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You might also like:

How to start an outsourcing company — 2016 version
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/12/29/how-to-start-an-outsourcing-company-2016/

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

Compilation of best posts about how to get clients for your BPO
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/20/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-bpo-or-call-center-compilation/

Marketing your outsourcing company
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2010/11/24/marketing-your-outsourcing-company/

How to get clients for your call center — CONTRACTS
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/05/how-to-get-clients-for-call-centers-contracts/

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BPO – China Software BPO Industry

April 22, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: China | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

China Software BPO Industry Growth
 
China is growing rapidly as an outsourcing country.  Manufacturing has been an economic strength in China for many decades, but outsourcing is a new opportunity that China is quickly capitalizing on.  China has five economic zones that specialize in export manufacturing are often on or near the coast, making shipping easy.  But, what about China’s inland cities like Cheng-Du for example? Sze-Chuan is a province named after the four rivers that pass through it. They are famous for spicy dishes such as Kung Pao Chicken and Pandas. However, they are very far from shipping ports, and the status of China’s freeway system is far from mature.   Outsourcing technical tasks to faraway metros in Western China seems perfect.
 
Labor Costs
Labor costs in remote parts of  China are also much less than in the larger cities, giving remote areas another huge advantage in the outsourcing industry.  IBM set up a global delivery center in Cheng-Du in 2007 after opening up centers in more mainstream urban areas of Coastal China.
 
Relocation in China
China is a country where many will be willing to relocate to get a good job.  Although Chinese are very sentimental about their families, the drive to get ahead in their career is so powerful, that if companies were set up in the farthest extremes of Xin-Jiang province, droves of people would flock there to get a programming, BPO, or other type of job.
 
Other Factors
The banking industry in China facilitates fast business growth which is a boon which many other countries don’t have.  Additionally, the government is very clever about building good buildings and roads, to enable companies to be created and grow efficiently.  Good internet connections are found in many parts of China, and without internet, many businesses couldn’t exist at all.  Its easy to get low rent for office space in China which is yet another reason why China is a country with the fastest economic growth rate of any country on the planet.

Outsourcing Spirituality? A tale of two ashrams

April 18, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Vaastu Feng Shui | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Outsourcing spirituality – a tale of two ashrams
 
America is a land of spiritual poverty.  There is an acute shortage of qualified gurus, so we have to outsource our spiritual help to India, Israel (for Kabbalah), or Japan (for Zen Buddhism).  America went from being a land of shamanistic Native Americans to being a Christian country, but is now a multi-religious and mostly athiest and spiritually lost country.  The best spiritual help we receive is from groups from India.  There are two spiritual groups that stand out in my mind.  Both have wonderful spiritual benefits, but vastly different management styles.
 
SRCM – The Sri Ram Chandra Mission AKA Sahaj Marg.
A very spiritually potent group based in Manapakkam, Chennai, of Tamil Nadu, India.  With a lineage of three very powerful Masters or “Gurus”, this group has a lot to offer spiritually.   However, the management of the group engages in a multitude of sins including neglegence, discrimination, and general disorganized behavior. The current living guru is very capable at administering fast spiritual work to aspiring followers (abhyasis).  The previous guru has long since departed this world, but remains available to many of us in spirit form.  One French lady has written volumes of very long books with her conversations with this departed spirit.  The lady is a clairvoyant medium, and considered to be very talented spiritually, and at spirit communication.  The issue is that SRCM has had a presence in North America for roughly forty years, but has not grown its presence.  The Master is frustrated with the lack of growth, and therefor feels its not worth his investment in time to visit here.   The reason behind the lack of growth seems obvious — the group doesn’t cater to the preferences of Westerners and only attracts a small clicque of cliquish Indians who often leave others out of the picture. Behind the constant and deceptive use of the word “Brother” to address others when there is an acute absense of any semblence of brotherhood. Its clear, that SRCM or Sahaj Marg is a half cult, half spiritual group, and embraces a culture of excluding people.
 
Despite the superior spiritual offerings, culturally, this group is so opposite to what is acceptable to even the most accepting Westerner, that only a few hundred Westerners seem to stick to the practice on a national level.  The followers are too cowardly to confront the Master and let him understand that a policy of “Cultural condusiveness” is absolutely essential for the group to grow.  What I mean by cultural condisiveness is that you (1) don’t force Westerners to remove their shoes, (2)  you don’t harrass Westerners when they don’t follow Indian customs and habits, (3) you don’t force Westerners to sit in gender segregated meditation halls (at least during their first few years until they are well used to the group), (4) you don’t force Westerners to eat ONLY Indian dishes and the same dishes each time for the rest of their lives every single time they attend a function (BTW – when they cook American food, its so bad we beg them to cook Indian food again) (5) you don’t have the same set of talks again and again and again for the rest of our lives without offering some variety (6) you don’t play garbled videos that nobody can understand. (7) don’t harrass people taking a nap, (8) don’t harrass people who eat meat, (9) don’t give evasive answers to serious spiritual questions, (10) don’t have an inner circle which excludes everyone else.  The list of what not to do is endless.  It is because of these multitudes of sins, plus the lack of welcomingness and warmth in the environment that Westerners wouldn’t be caught dead at Sahaj Marg.
 
On a brighter note, if the Master really tuned in to these problems, and appointed managers and leaders who were devoted to solving these problems, then Sahaj Marg would be a valuable asset to the West.
 
The Ananda Mission
As a world traveler, I have come across the Ananda Mission.  Another spiritual mission who outsources its spiritual offerings from a lineage coming mainly from India.  They also acknowledge Jesus as one of their spiritual guides which is unique for an India-centric group. On the other hand, there are many records that show that Jesus spent themajority of his life in various parts of India, while only spending less than two non-consecutive decades in Israel, making Jesus — Indian!  Additionally, this group’s members are 90% caucasian, but they mostly have Indian names! The Ananda mission does everything right, that Sahaj Marg does wrong.
 
There are warm and caring people to greet you at their Nevada City Ashram.  The members are warm and caring and sweet too.  There is no fake brotherhood or fake “Universality”.  The food is high quality vegetarian food that is different every day and a treat to eat.  I don’t even like vegetarian food, but I love THEIR vegetarian food because of the care they put into it.  There is no monotonous culinary torture at the Ananda Mission.  Spiritually, meditation is perfect there, and my spiritual condition is positively altered long after I leave their venue.  To top it off, they have an endless variety of programs about everything from improving your health, and life, to understanding spirituality, one aspect at a time.  They have many events each day given by caring people who really try to give good answers to questions.  Although this group is very Indian in its spiritual philosophy, it is 200% acceptable to Westerners who are looking for a nice and informative spiritual group to belong to.
 
Conclusion
I feel stuck in the SRCM mission which is a constant source of grief, and I love the Ananda Mission which I am only a visitor too. Unfortunately the Ananda folks practice Kriya Yoga which is a very high quality of Yoga, but very different from the Raja Yoga that I have bee practicing for 20 years.  I guess my persional mission is to try to improve the mission that I belong too, even if it means pulling teeth (which it does).  We’ll see what happens…

The Japan Earthquake of 2011

April 16, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Japan Earthquake

The earthquake and tsumani in Northeast Japan near Sendai were devestating.  Its ironic, but I had two dreams several weeks before the earthquake where earthquakes happened. I interpreted the dreams to mean that there would be an upheaval in my personal life.  Maybe that is yet to come in a few weeks. We’ll see.  After the Japan quake, I had another dream that I was visiting a friend’s cottage on a river in Greece which was an hour by boat from China.  There was a terrible earthquake at the cottage where I was staying.  It lasted more than a minute, but I kept my cool in the dream.  I wonder if I could be so cool in real life?  After meditating on this dream, I interpreted this dream to mean that China would have a large earthquake, but on the coast or on a river.  But, my psychic said that the dream was about a future personal upheaval.

The death toll passed 18,000 and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.  It is hard to see such hard working people left helpless after one of nature’s statements.  What is more scary is the nuclear situation at Fukushima.  There is a high exposure to radioactivity and there have been many incidents where people have been injured due to high radioactivity. One worker was hospitalized due to possible high exposure to the skin in their foot.  None of the reactors will be able to be saved as well.

Radioactive water is spilling into the ocean and the radius of the effected area is growing.  But, Japanese authorities seem to be treating too small an area as the disaster area, where they should prohibit entry to a much larger radius for safety reasons.  Its hard to do testing when disasters happen so fast, but radiation readings need to be done in the seawater every single mile to see how far the damage goes.

My bigger fear is for the long run.  How will Tokyo fair in the long run?  They are only 150 miles from the power plant.  Their radioactivity was 23 more than normal, but is that dangerous?  How dangerous will it be in the long run for them to be there?  How will the countries economy be in the long run after this disaster.  What if they have another disaster?  2012 is around the corner and many of us feel that there will be all types of frequent disasters throughtout the globe, but potentially more if you live near an ocean or fault line like the Japanese do.

How does this effect outsourcing?  Will Japan outsource less due to this horrible quake and tsunami, or will they be more reliant on countries around them?  Will they be weakened so much in the long run that China might gobble them up?  Its a growing concern for many, and some people regard it as inevitable.  A lot of Japanese outsourcing is done by Japanese nationals who have taken up residency in nearby Asian countries such as China or Thailand.  However, if Japan’s situation gets much worse, they will be forced to accept help from people who are not culturally Japanese, or they might perish as a nation!

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How to start a website for an outsourcing company

April 15, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to start a website for an outsourcing company
 
Since the 90’s, it has been the in thing to do to start a website.  Having a website can drastically improve your marketing presence, and get you many more clients. Unfortunately, people are not aware of the costs involved in having a website, or how difficult it is to promote a site.
 
Sites for general outsourcing companies
There are different purposes for having a site.  One, is to be able to refer people who you already know or met to a site online so that they can easily get an overview of your company.  The other, is so that potential clients who do not know of you can find you online and perhaps contact you to purchase your services.  Just having a site which you don’t market much is a challenge in itself, but marketing a site can be murder.  
 
What to put in the site
The main components of a site are a flashy home page, a contact us page, an about us page, and a services page.  If your services are very involved, you might have several back up pages to elaborate on your various services.  The home page should have an easy to use navigation system that links to the various additional pages.  The site should look good, be functional, and information should be easy to find.  The hard part is that good artwork and layout are not easy and can cost a lot of lakhs to do a good job.  The mere act of finding someone capable of doing a good job in web design is also no easy feat.   If you are in India, the other websites in your country may be a bad role model.  Some of the fancier travel sites and web design sites may have flashy styles, but the other sites are very plain and unappealing. India is modernizing fast, so the trend is to have flashy sites, but this trend is unfolding slowly.  
 
Maintaining your site
Most people just want some price quotation of how much their site will cost.  The cost never ends.  Hosting goes on as long as you keep your site.  You have to renew your registration with the DNS.  And then, updating information and fixing things that break (especially in databases) is a real hassle.  If your information dosen’t change, then the server’s platform, or something on internet explorer might change.
 
Marketing your site
Optimization is a world of its own.  I do optimization ten hours a week for my sites. I analyze where traffic is coming from, and what various types of clicks are worth to me.  I create new content to support certain keywords and do linking strategies to link my internal pages. I also have a network of people who link to me in exchange for advertising.  Analyzing what content to put on pages, or what pages to link to what other pages is not easy.  There are many factors to consider there.  How many people click on the link, how good the content is you are linking to, and how relevant the information is.  Where you put the link and what type of artwork the link is housed in is critical as well.  With these multiple factors, you could be analyzing all day long for months. 
 
Keywords
The place to start with a small website is to identify which keywords you want to stress, and promote them on selected pages.  Having an analytics account to track what incoming keywords come to your site is irreplaceable for the analysis that you will need to do later on.  Regional keywords are critical, because there is less competition for the key word “Web Design Darjeeling”, than there is for “Web Design”.  There are hundreds of thousands of web designers world wide, but only a handful in Darjeeling.
 
Ask for help
Need help with optimization ideas?  Ask us at 123outsource.net.  I am not a professional optimizer, but I have four years of experience optimizing my own sites with considerable success!
 
SEO
What is SEO?  It just means search engine optimization.  It is a fancy word for optimization.  SEM is search engine marketing that can be done with pay-per-click networks such as google adwords. That is a fast way to get clicks and see which keyword variations generate traffic.
 
Please visit
India Web Design Search Results

India SEO Search Results

India Programming Search Results

Mumbai City Profile

April 14, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: City Profiles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Mumbai City Profile
 
Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is a peninsula located on the coast of Western Maharashtria and is the most populated city in India.  People stream into this city from all parts of India with aspirations of striking it rich, or at least making a living wage.  Many do not have proper work skills and end of living in slums on the outskirts of the city, while others who have better work skills, work hard and prosper.   Its a common myth among countryside people, that everyone in the city is rich, and that its easy to make money there.  It is true that there are numerous jobs in the city, but people work twelve hours a day and put up with horrendous commutes just to get by with modest salaries.  Big city life is not for everyone.
 
History
Mumbai was historically a fishing colony, and the decendants of the original fishermen are still living there in Mumbai, but their population has been dwarfed by the huge influx of roughly 20 million other human beings from all over.  Mumbai was under the control of various local empires, and then colonized by Portugal, and later by Britain.  It is now the economic capital of India, or the “New York” of India, as well as being the film capital of India with its huge Bollywood film industry.
 
Outsourcing
We have outsourcing listings for many types of companies in Mumbai.  Companies tend to be more business oriented, but less technically oriented as the technical specialties are better represented in South Indian cities and Pune.
BPO  
Call Centers
Data Entry
 
Economy & Transportation
Bombay residents have higher salaries than in most other parts of India. Major banks, airlines, and other large companies will typically have a head office in Mumbai.  The Bombay stock exchange not surprisingly also has its head in Mumbai as well as the national stock exchange of India.  However, the cost of living, especially the rent is murderous, leaving many large families living in a single room.  They live, cook, eat, and sleep in that same room.  The train or local railway (as they call it) is the pulse of the city, connecting people from very far away at rapid speeds.  Its common to travel 25 kms to work everyday in a crowded train.  The problem is that the trains are so packed, the only way to breathe is to tilt your head up.  And if the train jerks to a stop, don’t worry about falling, there will be at least two dozen soft bodies to cushion your fall.  Squeezing in the train is another mystery of the East, but all you need is a few square inches to plant one of your feet and something to hang onto and you’ll be fine.  Auto rick shaws are only allowed to operate in Northern Mumbai while South Mumbai uses only cabs.
 
Architecture
Mumbai hosts some beautiful architecture, especially in the Southern parts of town like Nariman Point and Fort.  You can see some hybrid British / Indian architecture that doesn’t exist in any other part of the world.  Victoria Terminus which is currently known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminous is a beautiful architectural feat and worth a visit.  Gateway to India is another famous landmark in Nariman point thats worth seeing.
 
Ports
Mumbai has two major ports including: Mumbai Port Trust and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust which handles 55-60% of the countries container cargo.
 
Culture
The majority of Mumbaikars (local Mumbai people) are Marathi in origin.  Some are indiginous to the local area, while others are from the various rural parts of the state, or Pune, Nasik, or Nagpur. The second most populous ethnic group are Gujarathis which is not surprising as Gujarat is Maharashtrias neighbor to the North.  These two groups make up roughly half of Mumbais population and are generally conversant in Hindi. The rest of the population is from all over. Keralites, Biharis, Tamils, Bengalis, and people from many other states inhabit Mumbai.  It is noteworthy that there are very few Asiatic looking Indans from the Northeastern states as they prefer to go to Bangalore or Delhi if they leave their homeland.  Additionally, there are very few Sikhs in Mumbai too as they prefer to stick to places like Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi.  
 
Religion
There are people of a wide variety of religions in Mumbai.  Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians are in large numbers. The Fort area has many Zoroastrians too, and this religion is practiced by Parsis who are people who fled Iran more than one thousand years ago and have been living in India ever since.  Mumbai even has had a Jewish population for over one thousand years!
 
Urban growth
These days, the city is growing outward.  The land in Mumbai has been used, and Navi Mumbai across the bridge is being quickly developed with lots of new construction and roads being built.  Thane and the area north of it are developing too.  It looks like there will be a solid wall of civilization streaming out of Mumbai for hundreds of Kms one day soon if the population there keeps growing.  The new trend in India is to try to build industry in remote areas. The land is cheaper, and this will slow down the huge national migration to large cities which causes overcrowding, crime and other serious problems.

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