Category Archives: Outsourcing Articles

Thinking big in business

July 26, 2013 by 123outsource
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Do you think big? Do your friends think you think big? Do you think that others think small.

If you are consciously aware of how others think small, then you think bigger than they do.

Most people think small by the way.

Some people talk big, but don’t think big — or, at least are not willing to commit to what it takes to have big results.

There have been studies about people who thought big. There were two people from Israel from similar families, similar neighborhoods. Both went to the same school, and both had almost the same IQ. One became middle class, where the other became a billionaire. What was the difference? One thought big!

When you run a business, there are different things to think about. Who will answer the phone? How will someone answer the phone? How will you answer various types of questions? How will you train people? What type of product or service will you offer? How will you adjust your pricing to meet the neds of the market? If you run a small business, it is actually really difficult to picture running a huge enterprise.

Imagine that your business has you and two others working for you. How do you picture having 200 people running around doing various tasks for you. Can you picture that? I can not. Perhaps if you have two working for you, the next step is to think about having four working for you, and so on. Just think of that next step up the ladder. But, maybe it is good to think about something 100 times as big as what you have. It is a good thinking exercise to expand your horizons.

The secret of success is to be able to think about something that you think is impossible — yet realize that it IS possible.

When I started my first successful business as an adult, I thought it would be a directory for myself and a few others. I never pictured having 10000 clients. But, I heard a little voice inside me saying, “Think big, think big”. So, I decided to get a few hundred clients. I gave them free lisings. Many of those individuals turned out to be clients for more than a decade and pay big bucks now. How did this happen? It started out with me thinking big — and doing lots of hard work!

No matter where you are in your business, it doesn’t matter. We are all somewhere, and we are all evolving (or devolving). Make it a practice to force yourself to picture yourself in a very different bunch of situations. Think about having a business double the size, ten times the size and then one hundred times the size. Think about how you would deal with the issues that arose, and how to deal with the people involved. Think about how little time you would have for nonsense. Think about what you would delegate to others and how you would dictate policies to your managers. It is a lot to think about. Honestly, without really good managers below you, your big thoughts mean very little. So, when you think big, think about big systems that work — and how they work!

Force yourself to think big — and think realistically. But, most of all, you should have the ability to picture a reality happen that is not possible, according to your present thought patterns. That is the biggest skill of all! After all, the way that businesses unfold, and the way the life works is more similar to magic than anything else. So, believe in magic — just try to be realistic about it!!!

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A note about myself. I have noticed that I evolved from a child who thought very small. Now that I am older, I see how much bigger I am thinking when I talk to others who think only about pennies. I realize how far I have come, and the change didn’t come overnight by any means. By me realizing how small others think — that proves to me how I am thinking bigger. It seems that most others I know think in a very pedantic and small minded way. I only know a few others that think bigger thoughts — and those are the ones who are succeeding. Therefore — think big!

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

June 9, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Outsourcing Articles, Popular Posts | Tagged , | Leave a comment

I am always being asked how to get more clients for call centers, data entry, and software houses. But, the type of answers people want are what I call, “immediate gratification” type answers. How can I get something now that I may or may not deserve or merit. If I were writing to a Western audience, I would talk about piano or violin lessons, but most of my readers are in India, so let’s talk about the veena, sitar, tabla and tambouras.

When you take music lessons, you learn a whole lot more than just music. You learn discipline (essential for any profession), impeccable timing, listening skills, sensitivity, and how to coordinate with others — especially if playing a raga with a tabla player.

Many times when we call Call centers, we get people who can hardly communicate, if they answer the phone at all. If we email them, the email doesn’t get returned. If you want clients so badly, what prevents you from answering your email? That might be the only medium for communication that someone could use to communicate with you. Additionally, we get the “hard sell” types who want to immediately lock you into a very constrictive contract without evening listening to what your needs are.

Listening skills
Then, the staff at these call centers sometimes speak too softly, or too loudly. If you had a musical background, you would realize right away that their pitch was off tune. Some of them have a pleasant or unpleasant tone. Anybody can notice this, but with a musical background, your brain becomes very much more sensitized to noise. A call center worker might put words together in ways that are hard for the client to understand as well. You will pick up on this much better with a musical background. As I stated earlier, the management also doesn’t always listen to what the client wants. Listening is critical to success in business and you will have a much better listening skills if you took sitar lessons.

Timing
In music, you have to play a sequence of notes, with sensitivity in a particular rhythm. Emails are similar. They need to be answered in a time sensitive way. You can not wait three weeks to get back to someone about a time sensitive issue and then say, “oh sorry”. If the tabla player plays 12 beats and then you have to play a few notes immediately afterwards — this is very similar to what happens in the world of business. Your client might send you a process that has to be begun on Tuesday morning at 5am. What if three hours after a process is started, you need to inspect a critical piece of work to see if the project is going as planned, and you miss that precise window of time? If you are not paying attention, you miss critical deadlines and get lose your clients. A few veena lessons will teach you about timing!

Sensitivity
In business, analytics is very important. Knowing what the most important task to do at a particular time when you have limited resources. Sensitivity can help you notice more, and a lot faster. You will also notice a lot more details about what you are doing, and what is flawed and what needs to be fixed. Higher level business-people are much more refined in all aspects of their work.

Most companies have managers who are either unavailable, or who have trouble giving accurate answers to questions. In music, if there is even one flaw, the entire song, piece or raga can be ruined. In business, if you give wrong answers, your sale can be ruined. This type of accuracy training or discipline is irreplaceable and comes from studying music. Sure, business school can teach you a lot of principles, but tabla lessons teach you a sense of accuracy that can be transposed into any profession!

Clasically trained musicians make higher incomes!
If you look at people who are classical musicians in the United States, their average income is in the top 1-5%. They average around US$120,000 per year in income. People who just want quick bucks generally make around 15-40% of that amount. The discipline of classical music translates into good study skills which once again translates into higher level jobs and higher sensitivity in business skills. Sensitivity training is everything and your tamboura lessons will really help with this.

The moral of this blog is — think of your clients as tabla players. After they play their beats, you have to chime in!

Tweets:
(1) Classically trained musicians make higher incomes if they pursue professions
(2) The discipline of classical music translates into better study skills = higher income

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What if classically trained musicians ran IT companies in India?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/01/what-if-classically-trained-musicians-ran-it-companies-in-india/

Vaastu and Feng Shui for your business
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2010/12/11/vaastu-feng-shui-for-your-business/

Weeding out employees with a bad attitude

May 26, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

I was sitting next to an elderly man at a bar in a casino in Reno one fine evening. I didn’t know that this seasoned gentleman had been the manager of the bar for decades. He had wisdom beneath those gray hairs, and lots of it. I told him about my business issues, and he sat me down and started to spout out common sense wisdom that changed my life.

He said that you can take someone who doesn’t have skills and train them.

But, if someone has a bad attitude, it is generally not possible to fix — so, just get rid of them as fast as you can.

You’ll be glad you did!

In my business, it is hard to just fire people who are working on complicated projects. Bar tenders are dime a dozen. You can have 100 prospects waiting in line if you have to fire someone. But, programmers are harder to find. The majority don’t even answer phone calls — ever!

In any case, in a company environment, one person with a bad attitude can infect the other workers with a bad attitude. They can also singlehandedly change the entire work environment or vibration. It is not worth it. If they are that bad — get rid of them. On the other hand, nobody is perfect. So, don’t be too unreasonable; otherwise you will have to fire everyone, including yourself, and then divorse your wife, and disown your parents — and your cat!

What I learned is that a group of people attracts more people of similar nature. If you have a spiritual group where everyone is mean, then the new people joining the group will tend to be mean — or at least you will alienate the nice people, so the ones you are left with are mean. If you have an outsourcing company, you can not afford this reality. Have nice people, so that when you hire new people, you will be able to attract good ones, and keep them. Think ahead!

Making them feel the pressure subconsciously

May 20, 2013 by 123outsource
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People are more in touch with their subconscious than you might think. They will undoubtedly deny this because they are not consciously consciuos of their subconscious — or at least they don’t think they are! Sometimes I have to work with people or BPO companies who just won’t cooperate. It is difficult to just fire them and move on to another company who is relatively “unknown” to me in terms of their reliability. So sometimes, I decide that it is better to crack the whip a bit, and give a mixture of incentives and penalties for good or bad behavior.

The most common problem is that someone refuses to follow directions or get something done in a reasonable amount of time. They are busy with other commitments, or just plain stubborn. I have learned to be patient, but “overpatience” is a liability, not a virtue. Irresponsible people systematically take advantage of you if you are too lenient in a business relationship.

The irony or the secret is, that when I search for replacements, and really put time into my search — my current service providers seem to tune into that and feel it. They can sense that they will be replaced soon if they don’t shape up. There is no better way to instill this feeling than shopping around.

If you are from India or the Philippines, there is this great American song from the 60’s that was many people’s favorites. It was a motown hit called, “Shop Around”. It is about a mother who told her son that he had better shop around for a good bride, and not to marry the first pretty girl who he found. She warned him that if he didn’t find a girl who really loved him, that he would be very sad in the long run. You can watch this Smokey Robinson song on youtube.com.

“Mama always said you better show around” — Smokey Robinson

Big programming companies — which one is right for you?

May 14, 2013 by 123outsource
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I have been interviewing large programming houses. Some are here in the good old U.S. of A. But, others are in Canada, Belarus, Vietnam, and India. Which one is the best and why?

What I learned is that big companies have many individuals working for them, but seem to have a narrow type of thinking when it comes to their business model.

The low end..
I have seen big outsourcers specialize in hiring cheap labor. Everyone at such companies would be inexpensive and not that well skilled.

The medium level
Others specialize in hiring medium (end) workers. You will never get anyone that bad, or anyone that good at such a company. If most of the work on a particular side required average workers, but sometimes you need a specialist, you will be sorry if you hire an inflexable middle of the road company.

The High end..
There are a few high-end programming companies too. Some of them charge high end prices without delivering high end service. But, some really do hire the best and finest programmers in town. If your project consists of partly grunt work and some specialty work as well, you will get the job accomplished with this type of company — and for a very handsome price tag.

Mixed Level
Mixed level companies. There are companies that charge a fixed hourly rate for work, but mix up the levels of the programmers and project managers. You might get a handful of medium level workers, and once in a while they might pull in a specialist, while having the whole operation managed by a very seasoned project manager.

All Level
Some companies, large and small, offer a choice of programmers. The hourly price changes depending on who you hire. To me this makes sense. You pay exactly for what you get. In real life, programmers can range in price from $10 per hour until $200 per hour. I bet that you can imagine the difference in efficiency, capability, and quality between the workers at all of those price breaks!

Bait and switch practices at outsourcing companies

May 11, 2013 by 123outsource
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It is common for companies to tell prospective clients pleasant things to get their to sign a contract. However, once you read the actual contract it might be a lot less pleasant than what the salesperson talked about.

I had one company tell me that I could purchase as many hours of programming as I liked in a month providing I prepayed. I thought this was reasonable. When I received the contract, they were asking for a 40 hour per month contract which turned out to be their minimum order. The hourly price was right, but the minimum was crazy. My project is a small one that needs about 5-12 hours per month on an ongoing basis.

I told the provider that if they did a good job on the “test” project, that I had other projects in the pipeline that I would give them. However, they wanted to do the test only if I would upgrade to 40 hours per month soon after that.

I wish they would have told me about the minimum up front so I could have spent my time talking to the other companies on my list.

In any case, the process of choosing an outsourcing service provider is hard. The deeper you dig, and more people at the company you talk to — you will find that the story keeps changing. You need to know what you are getting at an outsourcing company BEFORE you sign anything. Additionally, for smaller projects, I am not sure that signing a contract is in your favor. It binds you to a legal relationship with a company that you might not even like.

The one out of three rule

April 27, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It seems to be the case in most companies that engage in some sort of outsourcing. I noticed that 1 out of 3 workers seems to do their work in a way that I like. If I try six workers at a company for various tasks, I will like 2. Is it possible to find a company where everyone is amazing? I wish! Well, my company hires amazing people, so with us, you can have your cake and eat it to! But, we are special in case you didn’t notice (or, at least we like to think we are).

Even at a place that offered chiropractic work, I noticed that I liked exactly 1 out of 3 of the practitioners. Bizarre. So, there is merit to the 1 out of 3 rule. The trick is to make sure you are ALWAYS working with workers who are favorable to you. If you do, the you will:

Have good dreams at night.
Feel happier
Notice that you start whistling for no apparant reason
Do nice deeds for other without your usual ulterior motivations
And more…

Hire the right people and be happy!

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Hiring people who can really think

Each rep gives a different answer!

April 21, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

When I interview companies to hire them for various outsourcing processes, one thing always comes true: If I talk to two different people at the same company, the answer is always different. The salesperson tells me one thing and the project manager tells me something completely different.

So, who should you believe? My experience is that salespeople are usually poorly trained. Unless the person doing sales has extensive technical knowledge, I would not believe a word they say, even about easy things. I had one company tell me that they had forty programmers who knew a particular language. When I talked to the project manager, the answer changed to ten. A similar situation happened with another company.

Interview the salesperson to see how they were trained
When interviewing companies, interview the salesperson, NOT to get answers, but to see how they are trained, and how accurate / honest they are. If you can catch them making mistakes, then you know the company is not perfect. However, in outsourcing, NOBODY is perfect. So, if they made one small mistake instead of three huge omissions or blatant lies, perhaps you are in reasonably good hands.

Interview the project manager for actual answers
When I interview project managers and technical managers, they are never as happy or cheery as the salespeople. The answers are often very negative and pessimistic. Interviewing these technical types is a great way to verify point by point what the salesperson said.

Assessing the company
I am very unclear as to whether or not you can assess the quality of a company based on the quality of the sales staff. However, if anyone at a particular company is poorly trained and gives out poor answers to questions, that is a very bad sign. We are all human and people make mistakes, so I would not dismiss a company that has one or two screws loose. However, I would keep a screw count, so that you can compare them to other companies you interviewed. You need to keep track of how competent each person at the company is — that means keep a scoresheet for at least two salespeople per company, and two project managers per company. If you can talk to actual workers, that is good too, because companies normally hide their shameful workers from the public — and for good reason!

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Hiring people who can really think

Are you tired of outsourcing to India?

Do you think about the long term business?

April 2, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I interview BPO companies all the time. The one thing that I have noticed, is that companies typically are not looking at their long run growth potential. It is all about twisting someone’s arm into a contract that is not beneficial to the client. Or, other companies get you on board and then slack off, and don’t get your work done.

If you want to have a big BPO business one day, you need MORE clients. How can you get more clients, if you scare half of them away before they become clients? How can you get more clients if you are lazy about getting their work done on time? Do you think about that? Try getting all the clients you can keep on THEIR terms, and try keeping them. Hire new people to do their work if it is economically feasable. The next thing you know, you will have a bigger business.

Long term thinking is more than having a formal business plan. It is more than understanding certain analytics and metrics. It is about creating a vacuum effect to draw in new clients and keep them.

A new client is like a seed. They can grow into a bigger client and tell their friends. One client can become ten times their original size if you get referrals, and referrals from referrals.

By having enough people on staff to get your work done, you are creating a metaphysical opening in the universe to let more business in. How can you get more business if you don’t have the resources to handle it? And whose fault is it if you DECIDE not to have the resources to get the work done for your clients? It is your decision.

You decide to grow, or not to grow by how you allocate your staff resources, and how you treat your clients.

If you want constant growth, you need to always have at least 10% more staff resources than you can use. That way you are never too busy for a client. Most people think that is wasteful. But, what do you think? Do you want to grow? How else can you do it?

——
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One famous Rabbi was asked, “Rabbi, I am a small potato who wants to become a big potato in business — what should I do?”. The Rabbi thoughtfully pulled on his long beard and gazed inquisitively at the wall for what seemed like a very long time. He made many different facial expressions during this time. He crinkled his face, then opened his eyes wide, then looked up. Then, it was back to staring at the floor. It was obvious that he was deep in thought. He said, “Hmmm” a few times, and then cleared his throat. Finally, he remarked, “If you want to become a big potato, put more dirt around you!”

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Should you have a niche in your outsourcing market?

Focusing on the goal is half of the secret to fast growth

Fear is an emotion that can cripple you

March 24, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

I learned about fear in 2009. Sure, I had been fearful before, but this was different. My guru had removed many things from within me from past lives that caused me to lose my mind for a week. I guess he didn’t realize how severe the effects of his work were. Fortunately, with a few months of counseling and cabernet sauvignon, I got better. I think the angels helped too. But, I felt terror. My mind was not working normally. I had horrible dreams and visions all the time. Recurring terrifying thoughts that just wouldn’t stop. I don’t know other people who went through that, so it is hard to say if that is normal. What does normal mean anyway — at least what does it normally mean?

People get up and make speeches about how fear can cripple you. One of our former presidents had a speech where he claimed that the only thing to fear is fear itself. God created an ability to have fear within us to protect us. Without fear, we will die out. But, fear can cripple you as well.

During my week of paranoia, I came to a realization. I saw that the fear went straight to my body, and paralyzed my ability to think straight as well. I realized that I would have to not entertain fearful thoughts, or I might have to be hospitalized. It was no laughing matter. Thoughts rushed through my head. What if I can no longer function, what if I lose my business, what if I lose my sanity altogether? I have nobody to take care of me. I would lose everything. I learned that fearing doesn’t help anything, but just makes things worse. It causes chemical reactions to happen in your mind and body. At any rate, I became calmer and calmer. I had to stop meditating for a few months to recover from the mental trauma. Some of my neurons were indeed damaged for years which accounted for bizarre mental images that were recurring. They stopped, and some of them came back periodically over the years. In any case, I got used to it. After a few months, I started meditating again, and gained a very deep sense of calm. I guess whatever my guru removed was really hampering my spiritual development. I am happy to have the bad things removed from my soul, although I wish it could have been done in a way that was safer.

In any case, I lived the reality that I had to discipline my mind to deal with fear effectively.

As business people, we need to make decisions daily. We need to deal with difficult and sometimes scary situations. The tax collecters can be corrupt, dangerous and downright malicious. I had a horrible run in with those people. At first I panicked. But, then, I remembered my horrible experienced from 2009. I decided that I will fight a disciplined fight. In the long run I will be okay no matter what and that God would protect me. I controlled my fear, got an attorney, and took care of business.

You can also have bad situations with critical employees who you can not replace easily. It is scary. Do you have the capacity to consdition yourself to get really calm, and make a calculated decision? As a business owner you absolutely have to have this ability to control your emotions — otherwise you will break when you have a sudden problem.

Your heart already knows what you want to become in business

March 23, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Do you listen to your heart? I talked to a man who believed that your heart and intestines had ganglia and intelligence. Personally, I believe that all parts of our body have consciousness. I believe that rocks have consciousness — not a very evolved consciousness, although I’m sure that some rocks are more evolved than other rocks.

Many of us are just so caught up in our daily work, that we don’t listen to our true self. We don’t listen to our intuition. We don’t do what we really should be doing, or at least not for long after it is due. As business owners, we need to really listen to ourselves for once. Maybe we need to meditate once a week on what we need to do, and what is important. I was doing this before and it worked well. Now, I am not so regular on this.

As business people, I feel that many of us are simply out of touch with watching our business. There is too much to watch and we are too busy. In 2013 life is busy. Everyone is busy whether they have a business or not. You need to free yourself up a bit. Hire some new assistants. Train some new people. Free yourself up so that you can watch and listen. Watch what is going on externally, and then watch what your intuition is trying to tell you.

It is like being two people. You have a higher self which knows the answers. Then, you have our mundane self which is really busy and is lost in a sea of distractions. The one self needs to listen to the other self. Connect yourselves. Then you will be on the right track: the both of you(s). The answers are all there — inside you. Wow, I sound like a guru. Maybe I should go to one of those schools of guruology and become a real guru. I am already saying guru type lines — and I meditate regularly — I am part of the way there already!

But you should listen to your gut too. Americans are better at listening to their gut than their heart in my experience. Listen to both. Your heart will help you more with aspiring to dreams. Your gut will be better at keeping you out of trouble. If your gut doesn’t like an idea, it will probably turn out to have serious issues. So, listen to your heart, gut, and maybe your liver and kidneys too — why not. Why should you leave out any vital organs, right?

Being the best version of YOU

March 16, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | 1 Comment

Many of us are very competitive. A few of us want to “crush” our competition. The competitor who is really dangerous does not want to crush you. He simply works daily on making his business the best that it can be, and always strives to be the best that he can be (scary). If your competitors were all trying to be the best that they could be — I assure you that you would be out of business tomorrow.

In some ways, we will never be able to compete with others. If someone is a master musician, and we are tone deaf, we can not compete. We can study music and perhaps improve, but we will never be Horowitz no matter what. So, rather than being disappointed, we should work hard at what we do in a way that has potential to achieve greatness. And we can also work on skills that we have which we will never reach greatness in. The main point is to try to be the best that you are, and not to be disappointed or happy when you measure yourself up to others. Remember — attachment to where you stand relative to others is a sure recipe for misery: The Taiwanese prove this point perfectly.

The Taiwan paradox: No matter how many millions they have, they always mention some other guy — also generally named Mr. Lin (30% of Taiwanese are named Lin) who has more money than they do. If Mr. Li has 2 million, then he looks to Mr. Lin who has 3 million and feels jealousy. Then after more hard work Mr. Li has 3 million, but then Mr. Wang has 4 million — and Mr. Li just can not be happy.

Toyota corporation has the concept of “Kai-Zen”. A Japanese term for constant improvement. Every day, they find something that they can do better. Exciting if you ask me. Many others are constantly trying to find new ways to refine every aspect of what they do every day. You know you are dead when you give up trying to evolve. The cave men stopped evolving and they died off which is proof that you must always try to evolve and always try to be the best version of you that you can be.

On a more satirical note — if you don’t like yourself — then you can try to be the best “aversion” of you that you can be!

Personally for me, I strive to be the “Jeremy P360L 2014 model with extra RAM” — that is the best version of me that I can think of at this point in my evolution.

To sum it up: Don’t be a cave man — EVOLVE!