The Vaastu & Feng Shui of too much water?

September 20, 2012 by admin
Categories: Vaastu Feng Shui | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Vaastu reality of too much water and its effect on your business

Most people who do business do not like metaphysics, and related philosophies such as feng shui and vaastu (its Indian equivalent). They think it is crazy and unnecessary. But, they are wrong. Others think it is superstitious. But, can feng shui or vaastu be considered superstitious if you have analytics proving certain points? You have to be very stubborn to ignore hard evidence staring you in the face, right?

What is feng shui?

The 3000+ year old Chinese art of feng shui examines how your environment effects your health, business, and life in general.  The year a building was built, or the floor plan of a building effects those who live in it.  But, outside, water, trees, and other environmental factors effect you too.

Waterfalls

I study waterfalls and their effect on business. At feng shui school we learned that water to the North is good for finances, but that moving water exponentially improved the effects of the water.  We also learned that too much water can DROWN you.  Water on your roof is a disaster, so painting tiles on your roof blue like Japanese people do is suicide! No wonder they had a tsunami that wiped them out after having all of those blue tiles on their roofs! But, I learned a lot more about waterfalls on my own. I have learned that standing the right direction and distance from a waterfall for about 30-45 minutes greatly enhances my internet sales on the following day!

What direction to stand

I learned that where you stand in relation to a waterfall is very important.   Schools say that the water must be to the North for best luck, but I learned that that is not exactly true.  Water to the North, East, Southeast, and West are all auspicious.  Water to the East and Southeast are a little better for developing new clientele perhaps because the water nourishes the wood element represented by the East and Southeast.  Wood or no wood, the analytics I took don’t lie about attracting new clients to my e-business.

How close to stand

The other factor that you can not ignore is how close to stand to a waterfall.  In addition to being the exact right direction (bring your digital compass), you need to be the right distance. I normally will visit waterfalls at Yosemite which are at least 400 feet tall, and up to 2000 feet tall, although those tall falls, sometimes are divided into sections.  I learned that standing 200 to 700 feet away from the waterfall in the correct direction is perfect.  You must have an unobstructed view of the waterfall otherwise you will not get any water energy.

What went wrong

I am experimenting here, so I can not say that I went wrong, but rather that I learned something new. One time I stood too far from a waterfall, and got no improvement on my e-business the next day. When I stand the “correct” distance from a waterfall I always get a 20-80% improvement in my sales the following day (not the same day — this is how the energies work).  A few days ago, I wanted to see what would happen if I was really close to the waterfall.  So, I went “scrambling” on the wet rocks.  This is actually very dangerous and many have lost their lives this way.  I went to about 70 feet from the base of the waterfall so that there was mist everywhere.   I got a little bit wet which was okay.

The results of my waterfall trip

Sales were dead for the next 24 hours.  I think that I got too close to the waterfall and the water energies were too intense. I got the worst analytics for my business that I have ever gotten while doing waterfall feng shui.  I would say that the water “qi” was so intense that it drowned me.  On a brighter note, my acupuncturist remarked at how my kidney “qi” (energy) was the best she had seen it in a long time.  Water energy is the energy in the kidney and kidney energy channels in the human body according to Chinese five element theory.  Being near clean moving water is good for your kidneys (try explaining this to your doctor and you will get a blank look).  So, being “too” close to a waterfall is bad for business, but good for kidneys, and lots of fun.

What is next?

Feng shui is not only good for business, but is fun to learn about, especially when you learn in the real world rather than learning from books.  I would love to visit Hawaii and see how it feels to be near waterfalls there!  The environment is very different there, and very calming. I bet it will be really fun.

How does this effect you?

If you are a business owner, you need to be in tune to how our environment(s) where you spend time effect you and how they effect your business.  Being in a slum for two hours for a business meeting could ruin you sales the next day. You need to be very aware of this to succeed in business! Good luck, and go find a waterfall near you!

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Hiring people with great personalities?

September 17, 2012 by admin
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Outsourcing Articles, Semi-Popular | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Hiring people with great personalities?

Most companies follow the same hiring strategy. Hire anti-social geeks to do technical work, hire a people person to do customer service, and those are the basics.  But, you tend to create large divides in companies that are built like this.

I always realize the vast difference in the feeling when I leave the room with the sales, marketing, and customer service people and go into the room with the technical people.  It goes from friendly to  depressing in only seconds.  My question is, what would happen if you employed a new strategy — a strategy where you create a work culture that is really friendly.

Employees choose where to apply to, and good employees have many choices.  India’s economy has a labor shortage (for the first time in recorded history), and good workers have many choices as to where to work.  So, if you have a company that has a reputation of being fun to work for, then you might be able to attract the best workers even if you don’t pay the most.  Remember — job satisfaction is high on people’s lists these days.

So, what if you had an attractive office, and hired people with great personalities — even the computer nerds would have colorful and engaging personalities (if that is possible — there is a first for everything).  You would be really mastering the art of attraction here.  You would attract great workers, and your workers would quit less, because they liked working there.  You would also attract more clients.

Some clients interact a lot with the employees at particular companies, while others interact mostly by email.  For the clients who talk with people, imagine how they will feel if YOUR company has personal people at every level of the company. Most companies won’t let you talk directly with a programmer, but what if YOUR company has friendly programmers who actually don’t run for cover when a client is around?

In today’s business world, people often ignore the personal aspect of business, and this is the worst mistake they could make. Deals are won and lost, often because someone doesn’t like someone else!  Sure, they want someone who can get the job done, but they might also want to feel comfortable with the people involved.

I wish someone would try this experiment and get back to me — but, someone already has. Cliff Bar hired gung ho and enthusiastic people to run their energy bar company.  For those of you overseas, Cliff Bar makes health bars that have oats, chocolate, and fruit flavors, and they use brown rice syrup and other ingredients to hold the bars together. Hikers and outdoor enthusiasts typically love to eat Cliff Bars (me included).  The result was that they had a company where everyone was happy and felt good coming to work, even if they only made minimum wage!  Can you create this atmosphere at your company? It is worth a try.

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How do you teach interaction and smoothness?

September 14, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

So, how do you teach interaction and smoothness?

I feel that a busy call center is the worst environment for teaching sales.  A cool and relaxing environment where people can focus on interaction is much better.  I study dream analysis which is the study of symbology. My dream dictionary says that a coffee house or coffee in a dream represents stimulation and interaction.  I feel that sales should be taught in a coffee house. Lesson one should be how to call someone on the phone and smoothly engage them in a conversation.  Talk about THEM and what they are doing. They might ask about you, and what you are doing. NOTICE that we have done a lot of talking and not yet talked about what we are selling — this is good.

Did you forget that you were selling something? — GOOD!
When people get to know you and like you, they are now willing to talk to you LONGER, and have put their defenses down, which makes it easier for you to talk about what you are selling while they are still in a good mood.

Learn the art of asking questions
You can practice this in the cafe with your sales mentor.  You pretend you are on the phone with them, and you could even hold real phones to your ear to make it realistic.  You could joke with the people at the next table to lighten the mood — and the key here is to keep the mood light.  People are bothered by salespeople, so if you are the one salesperson who keeps the mood light, they will be less repulsted by you — they might even like you! Think positive!

This dialogue below is very casual. It might be considered inappropriate for larger companies, but smaller companies have the luxury of developing their own “corporate” style which could be very informal.  Many people in America really like a relaxed and folksy (informal) way of chatting.

You can practice a dialogue:  Let’s say that Ravi and his trainor Ramesh are hanging out at Barrista’s somewhere in India.  Ramesh pretends to be the prospective client who is a manager at a company somewhere overseas.

Ravi: Hi this is Ravi from Aleppi Call Center, may I speak to Candace please? (a professional introduction is a must)
Candace: Hi, this is Candy, how may I help you? (Candace uses her informal name variation)

Ravi: So, how is everything going today?   …. (if Candace is really busy, this casual approach will backfire)
Candace: Oh, just busy doing emails as usual.  I feel like a slave in this office.

Ravi: I know how you feel, that is why I do most of my work from a local cafe.  We have all become friends here at the cafe.
(Ravi smoothly lightens the mood)
Candace: That sounds like so much fun, if only I could do that

Ravi: You can always pretend that you are at a cafe when you are trapped in a stressful office
(Ravi has a witty and cool response to every statement Candace has made so far if you have noticed)
Candace: That is so true, I’ll remember that… By the way, what is your call about?

Ravi: Oh, right — “purpose”. It is so much fun chatting, that I almost forgot that we are supposed to talk about something productive!  (funny comments make the other person feel relaxed) We run a large and well reputed call center in Kerela, (this line adds professionalism) and we were curious to know if your company feels overburdened in any way in regards to the volume of calls, emails, or technical support issues.  I noticed that you mentioned that you were buried in emails, we have staff members who specialize in answering emails, and we can train them to answer them exactly how you would like them answered.
Candace: Hmm, that is very interesting Ravi. We have never hired an outside company to do anything like this for us. I have never thought about this even briefly…

Ravi: Certain repetetive tasks are easy for outside companies to assist you with.  More specialized tasks requiring a deeper knowledge of your core competencies (notice that Ravis uses MBA terms with ease) are better left to a skilled manager at the mother company in our experience. Does your company have any types of tasks that you consider to be repetetive that drain your labor resources? (notice that Ravi does more asking than telling — he LISTENS)
Candace: Hmmm, once again you have got me thinking again, usually I operate in auto-pilot when in the workplace. Hmmm….. thinking…  Actually, we do have some repetetive emails, and from time to time some annoying phone calls.  Does your company like annoying work?

Ravi: We actually thrive on that — the more annoying, the more we enjoy it.  (Ravi adds humor once again to win over the mood of the prospect).  We are actually so used to busy work over here, that we don’t even notice how repetetive it is. (Ravi adds a psychological sales pitch here making his company look very seasoned and reliable).  We are actually very flexible at our company.  We cater to companies small and large alike. We can come up with an introductary plan to meet your specific needs which seem to change by the week.  (flexibility is a huge factor when dealing with smaller companies with unstable workloads).  We can handle your overflow whenever you need it, so that you can relax and smell the roses a little more.  Why don’t we set up a time to go over what your specific tasks are and what they entail.  Once I know what the tasks involved are, I can give you approximate billing details.  Do you think you could itemize the type of tasks that you need done?
Candace: I never thought about that.  I guess I could work on that tomorrow.  I’ll itemize all of the work that we might need you for.

Ravi: That sounds great!

What can we learn?

A larger company would need a more formal approach as I mentioned before. But, Ravi smooth-talked this lady.  He was friendly, funny, and involved her in a conversation before talking about business.  He got her to interact with him which is critical. He asked questions, listened, and provided business solutions that were tailor make for her.  Keep in mind that large companies have untrained workers rattle off sales slogans about how they provide tailored and customized solutions to their clients. If you talk more to these salespeople you will find that they have two million clients and only three choices and trust me — these three choices are standardized and there is nothing customized about them.  Rather than making too many generalized claims about your product, make specific claims that pertain to the prospect.    After this dialogue is over, Ravi will have to brush up on his follow up skills which are equally important as the initial sales call.

Can you teach your salespeople to be as smooth as Ravi?

Some people just don’t have it in them to sell anything.  So, you have to start out with people who have potential. The next stage is to get your trainee to relax.  Tension doesn’t sell anything.  Teaching interaction is hard, because that derives from a person’s individual style. But, you can try to train someone to make smooth conversation, and witty remarks from time to time.  The path to smoothness is a hard road, but a little training could go a long way!

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Developing your sales force of novices

September 11, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Developing your sales force of novices

I wrote this fun blog entry entitled, “How to sell like a pro“. This article looked into the different personality types involved in sales.  I wrote about a very smooth and seasoned pro, and a clumsy novice.  The truth is, that at your typical BPO outsourcing company, you will not be able to afford the James Bond type seasoned professionals, because they will want at least one hundred thousand dollars per year which would translate into an Indian salary of at least a dozen lakhs per year.  The reality is that Call Centers, or BPO operations hire relatively inexpensive staff members, and have to make due with them.  So, in my mind, the strategy here is seeing how much you can develop the people who you can afford. The key here is training the less seasoned salesperson to become a professional at several things.

Smooth and confident

Being smooth and confident is one of the most important skills to have, even if you don’t know the first thing about the product you are selling. Even if you are an idiot, if you are a smooth idiot who is pleasant to talk to and who engages the client in pleasant conversation, you have a significantly higher chance of a score than a timid, nerdy salesperson.

Interaction skills are a must

Anybody can learn product specifications and can learn which attributes to stress during a sales call. But, the harder skill here is interaction.  Knowing how to talk with people, and getting them to feel comfortable interacting is a key here.  High paid salespeople often will just talk to you for at least twenty minutes about “regular stuff” just to win you over and get you to feel comfortable with them.  Novices are in too much of a hurry to make a score, and don’t realize that psychology is 90% of the game and product is only 10%.  Take it easy.

Strategic listening

Women in America always say that they want a guy who listens.  Guess what? So, do prospective clients. I am bombarded with 10 emails per day from idiots who know nothing about me and don’t want to know anything about me, yet want to sell to me. It doesn’t work. They need to briefly introduce themselves, and then listen, and ask questions — by emails, that is unless I delete them which I generally do 99.9% of the time.  But, if by chance, someone cold calls me on the phone and talks to me, they need to find a way to ask me what my needs are.

Are Indians too uptight in business interactions?

September 8, 2012 by admin
Categories: India, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are Indians too uptight in business interactions?

Each region of the world has a different culture or blend of cultures.  India is no exception. India has a vast variety of people, religions, cultures, subcultures, and personalities.  But, what makes India different is that there are a lot of people who are uptight or what we might call socially ungraceful. If you are conducting a business, you need to be very smooth, otherwise others will feel less enticed to have any type of dealings with you at all. In short — being uptight will lose you a lot of business.

Examples of ungraceful behavior

I noticed that at restaurants in India, they warn me with a sense of terror if the dish I am ordering is DRY and has no sauce.  It is like they think the world will come to an end because the dish is dry.  Americans love dry food while Indians would rather perish than eat one bite of something dry.  The problem is NOT the culture difference, but how the situation is handled.  The problem for me is that the waiters are systematically extremely uptight.    Either I am ignored, or I am “uptightly” escorted to a table of THEIR choice.  Then, I am “uptightly” warned that there is a threat of having dry food.  Last, but not least, I am intruded upon by people who insist on pouring my water from MY water bottle which is sitting next to me on the table — without my consent which is very socially ungraceful behavior.    Of course, you are in the BPO, KPO, Call Center, or Programming outsource business, and not in the restaurant business, but the cultural issues are identical across these verticals.

So, what is the solution?

The polished way to handle the rough interactions in the last paragraph are as follows.  A calm, friendly and welcoming welcome are step one in any restaurant meal.  A restaurant that has no host is ignoring their clients which is bad manners even in the simplest of restaurants. It is nice to offer your patrons a choice of tables.  “Would you like a table in the center or a window seat?”.  When I order the Jammu-Kabob combination plate, rather than warning me about the dryness, the waiter could calmly say, “Would you like this dish dry, or would you prefer some masala sauce on the side?”.   Cultural knowledge is important for the water pouring point I made earlier . India is a society with a rigid class system where it is socially unacceptable for the upper classes to pour their own water or even tie their own shoes.  But, Americans of all classes are used to doing things for themselves, and I prefer to pour my own water for cultural reasons.  If someone else wants to pour my water (which is my property which you should touch), then you could at least have the courtesy to ask,”May I pour some more water for you?”

Uptightness in BPO companies

My restaurant example is fun and interesting, but BPO outfits often employ a lot of staff who appear very rigid on the phone.  Either companies need to hire staff members who are more suitable for interacting with overseas clients, or they need to be trained.  When I talk with people at Indian call centers, there is nothing specific that comes to my mind about what they are saying right or saying wrong. It is a general atmosphere of rigidity.  Part of the problem could be that they have a menacing manager looking over their shoulder who makes them feel fearful.  Part of the problem might be that they have to address certain points on a check list, and say certain words verbatum, or else they might get in trouble.  Yes — there needs to be structure in a call center job, but nobody in America wants to talk to someone uptight on the phone.

Solutions for uptight BPO workers…

The solution to uptight workers in BPO companies is to have management that understands what the overseas clients like to hear and how they like to be treated. If the manager only knows what is on a check list of things that need to be done, he will not understand the psychology of the client. This means more training not only for call center workers, but for managers as well — and that is expensive. The result is that you could win over some really large contracts if you do a good job training everyone. Large corporations can assign 1000 seats worth of work to a call center with the blink of an eye, but not if the call center does shoddy work.   The solution is to work on soft skills.  Sure, technical support workers need to be experts at their product knowledge, but understanding how to be graceful and nice in interactions is even MORE important when talking to Americans.  Americans will not want to talk to you no matter how helpful you are if you have the wrong vibe!  Understand our culture, and relax a bit!

Tweets:
(1) Each country has a different culture. What makes India different is the # of uptight or “socially ungraceful” people.
(2) Stay sharp in business, but, remain smooth in your interactions!
(3) If you’re uptight in business, your customers will become uptight too — if you still have any…
(4) Menacing Indian managers transmit tension; this makes workers fearful & rigid
(5) Which is more effective? Going down a checklist or smoothly having an interchange with a client?

(6) Is the manager’s checklist higher on the priority list than gracefully interacting with the client?
(7) The secret to BPO success is to understand how overseas clients like to be treated. Learn our culture & relax a bit.
(8) Work on your soft skills. Americans appreciate grace & manners as much as technical skills

You might also like:

How do you teach interaction and smoothness?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/09/14/how-do-you-teach-interaction-and-smoothness/

Indians who ask a million questions
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/06/10/indians-who-ask-a-million-questions/

Power in business is about having choices

September 5, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Power is about having many choices

I was watching television last night, and an old businessman said, “You don’t get power, you take it”.  This is somewhat true.  But, real power is all about having choices, and good choices.  If you have a million dollars, but there is only one place that serves food where you are, and they want half a million for a hamburger, your money will soon run out. So, money alone is not power.  However, if you know how to use your money, then you have a lot more power.

On the other hand, if you only have $50,000, but there are twenty places selling hamburgers all competing with each other, and you can get your hamburger for 20 cents, and hopefully a good quality burger too, then your money will last a long time.

We live in a strange world, where money is not backed by anything. A few decades ago, American currency was backed by a gold standard. Now, it is backed by nothing, and the money supply can grow when banks “create” more money to loan out. Sure, there are laws regulating how fast they can create money, but money is just arbitrarily created, and the money itself has no inherent value.

One year you might have $100,000, and the the price of gasoline could become $20 / gallon, and all your money will be lost paying for gas.  Another year you could have $200,000, but then fall ill, and your medical expenses could take your last penny.

How does this apply to your BPO business?

In a BPO business, your power is your ability to hire good people to work for you. Rather than just hiring people and settling on them, it is better to hire more people than you need so you can get rid of the underperformers.  Most workers in any country these days are underachievers, and you need to avoid these types like a disease.  Seed and weed is the agricultural expression to describe what I am talking about.

Hiring BPO companies

Also, if you are hiring outside BPO companies to work for your company, don’t just settle for one. Do a lot of shopping around and take notes about their performance. You don’t know a company until they have worked for you a little bit. Then, you will have an idea of how they perform.

The main point of this article is to put a lot of effort into making sure you have choices, and knowing how good those choices are — otherwise you are powerless and helpless!

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Zen and the art of pep talks

August 20, 2012 by admin
Categories: Motivation, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Zen and the Art of Pep Talks

Being a manager is more than just about showing up for work and assigning work to your various employees and subcontractors. It is more than just checking up on people, and more than just about shaking hands.  Psychology is a huge factor in being a manager, that can not be overlooked.

Working at a large company or tiny company doesn’t always make sense in terms of who does what and why.  In an entrepreneurship, the sole proprieter does all tasks in the business, unless they require some technical expertise in which case he hires an IT firm to help him. In a larger outfit, workers graduate to be managers if they are any good.  In a way this makes sense, because you need to be an expert on the work you do before you can supervise it. But, supervising is a completely different skill set, and they don’t teach this in school.

At school, if you studied business, you might study marketing theory, management techniques, and accounting. But, try out your skills in the real world with real people, and you will quickly realize that you are up against much more than what the text book said. You need to not only manage the actual work people do, but manage their attitudes as well.  What you might not realize, is that if a particular someone has the wrong attitude, your whole department could be doomed!

There are different types of attitude challanges that an employee might have and as a manager, you need to be able to quickly identify what type of psychological roadblocks the employee has, so that you can give them a pep talk that teaches them not only how to get through their roadblock, but how critical it is that they do.  Many employees don’t realize how serious an attitude problem could be.  It can kill a work relationship, and is contagious as well in many cases.

Imagine that in a room, there is one employee who doesn’t like being there and gives dirty looks to everyone.  Let’s assume that the others are not so pleased to be there either. The negativity spreads and circulates around the room — you can’t have that.  The manager can try to give regular pep talks to the most negative employee to get them to be more cheerful.  You could focus on how well that employee is doing, or how exciting the next project down the line is going to be.  Focus on positive things, and the positivity will spread — by definition. If the negative employee is incurable, or too high maintenance (pep talks don’t come cheap these days), then maybe it is time to say good bye.

What if you have a customer service rep who feels helpless even though they are an expert in their field?  This happens all the time!  I have a phone rep who is amazing, but lets customers walk all over him. Then, he gets all bent out of shape after they walked all over him.  I had a long time with him today and explained that he is the king. He has the knowledge, skill and experience, and these other people who are bothering him can barely tie their shoes. I said, “They should treat you with respect otherwise you shouldn’t even waste a nanosecond with them”.  I asked him if a professor, police man, border control agent, or other authority would let a civilian talk to them like customers talk to him — and he thought about it and said, “I guess not”.  Then, I said, “So why do you get upset when these ignorant types start antagonizing you?”.  I told this guy that HE was the authority, and that he sets the terms, and other people have to conform to his standards — or the discussion is over.  After this pep talk (which actually took over an hour in its entirety), my rep had a completely different perspective, and felt 200% better — just like that.

You might have a third type of situation where a good employee is just not giving 100%.  You could compliment this person on what their achievements have been, and what you think they can do next month.  Let them know that a little more effort could change their whole life — and that this is big.  It could mean promotions, more respect, and a completely different life in the future, and all it takes is another perspective, and a little extra effort.  The main ingredients here are enthusiasm, and the fact that the change you are asking for could have such huge results, that people’s whole lives could be permanently changed as a result.

Pep talks are life and death for a manager. If you don’t know how to do this, you need to study this like you study for a mid-term.  In a sense, giving good pep talks is sales work.  You are convincing someone to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise do, and giving them earth-shaking reasons why it is so important to do that thing you are proposing.

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Marketing and Interaction

August 17, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Interaction as a marketing technique

I wrote a few other blogs about sales. My point was that a good salesperson is an expert at interaction, and warms up to people before trying to twist their arm into a sale.  Also, instead of twisting the person’s arm, he gives compelling reasons to the prospect why they should by his product that makes the prospect want to buy the product on their own without any arm twisting.  Seasoned salespeople often make many sales very naturally without any resistance from the buyer.  But, I am in marketing, not sales, and I am not very knowledgeable about mastering the art of sales.   But, there are many parallels between marketing and sales.  Interaction is the main parallel that I want to bring up.

Selling right away is unattractive

My complaint about many Indian companies is that they try to start selling right away when they talk to you, and don’t get to know you first.  This is exactly the problem with most Indian BPO websites.  They say who they are and what they do, but they don’t get to know you.  Internet technology has changed in the last few years.  It used to be about having “a” site.  People would ask, “Do you have a web site?”. Then, the focus was on having a “nice” web site, and then we evolved to needing SEO optimization to show up on search engines which was very expensive and a nightmare.  Since around 2009, a new trend evolved in the internet, and it will be interesting to see how long this trend stays around, or further evolves.  This new trend is social media which includes facebook, blogs, twitter, linked in, myspace, orkut, etc.

Getting to know your users

A good salesperson gets to know you before trying to sell to you. He learns what makes you tick, and what you do, and what you care about BEFORE trying to sell you anything.  A good website does the same as much as possible. But, HOW is this possible?  Social media is the answer.  There are thousands of websites in any category, but the ones that get more attention are the ones that develop a relationship with the user.  Social media allows you to get to know your users, or allows your users to get to know you.

Blogging helps people know you

If you have a blog, particularly an interesting blog, then thousands or millions of people can get to know you, and read about what you have to say.  They will remember your site’s URL much more if they are a regular on your blog.  They will also be much more likely to spend money on your company if they feel that they know you and like you.  Familiarity sells, and there is no getting around that point — so get people to be familiar with your company by blogging.

Facebook is another way

Many businesses have a profile on Facebook. Whether Facebook is great or not is another question, but the fact remains that hundreds of millions of people worldwide are on this medium.  If you have a profile on facebook and populate it with regular interesting discussion topics or pieces of news, you might attract thousands of people who find you by browsing around. This is a great way to attract new clients!  They might see you on Facebook for two years before contacting you for a sale.  Or, if they are on your prospect list, you might call them, and they will be a lot friendlier to you if they saw you even ONCE on Facebook, even if it is a distant memory from the past.

Develop your presence

So, be a good marketeer, and develop a presence — preferably a good presence.  Be seen by millions of people, and get known. Familiarity makes it ten times easier to sell to someone — their resistance to being sold to by you will be at an all time low if they know you, know of you, or think they know you from some distant memory of brushing past your Facebook profile.  Most Indian companies are not using this technology, but if you want to be successful, you need to learn how to use it.

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The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree & your business!

August 11, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree and your business

There is a species of bamboo that grows in China.  You have to water it daily for exactly five years, but nothing happens.  If you miss one day of watering, the tree will never grow according to the legend.  However, at the end of exactly five years (according to the story), this tree will grow ten feet in a day.  According to what I have read on the internet, some species of bamboo can grow up to three feet per day, so this myth I am relating to you is not so far off.  But, how does this relate to your business?

Business is weird and strange.  A smart business person will have his company very streamlined and well organized. He will go to great lengths (or heights) to see that his business is as perfected as possible.  But, sometimes you have to put in many years of hard work before you ever see any remarkable growth.  In internet businesses, it is common to put in three years of hard work before ever turning a profit, or even a revenue. You have to have faith and love for your business, otherwise you don’t have a chance.  But, how does this relate to me?

The story of 123notary

I remember, back in the 1900’s (I am sounding old now), I started 123notary.com, a notary directory. I started it to market my own personal notary services.  I never made any money until 2002 when I made a trickle. But, I kept putting my time and money into that site out of passion and desperation.  Finally all of a sudden in March of 2003, we started making 10x the income just like that!  It is exactly like this crazy bamboo tree myth from China.

The outsourcing blog story

But, I just had another situation like this.  Our Outsourcing blog (the one you are reading), is something that gives me great pleasure to write. I have a passion for taking a look at business from as many interesting perspectives as possible. I wish I could see more perspectives so I could write more. I have been working on this blog for two years, but with minimal traffic.  I realized that the tags for the blog articles had been “hijacked” by wordpress.  It is their right since my blog was hosted with them.  So, I had to spend $1100 to my programmers to reconfigure the blog on my server, so that I could have my own tags. It took a few months because someone quit, and the programming company was behind schedule.  But, eventually the reconfiguring task got done, and it was formatted exactly how I wanted it. The next step was to create some links from 123outsource.net to the blog.  About a month after the last of these steps was completed, the blog traffic started really going up.  For two years we got less almost neglegable search engine traffic and not much visitation.  Now, we are getting more than 30 visits per day, and the visitation keeps going up. We might be getting 10,000 visits per month in a few months if I keep adding interesting articles!  Also, the traffic on the outsourcing site has jumped by 20% in the last month as a result of the blog’s new success.  I think that it might keep growing really fast if the blog continues to do well.

Secrecy as a business strategy

August 8, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

How good is secrecy as a business strategy?

I noticed that many business owners I know are very secretive.  There are many things they can’t tell me, and other things that they won’t disclose until a later date.  Many people think that if you tell them too much, you will expose your business secrets and lose a lot.  Many people think that when you go for a business lunch or coffee that you should keep the conversation very limited and hide a lot of information. One company refused to give me any information as to how they operated and asked me to read their FAQ page which also had very little information.  So, is it good or bad to conceal information?

The Feng Shui School example

My best example of this topic is of my Feng Shui teacher.  This teacher was one of the world’s foremost experts in his field, but also a good businessman.  By the way, The ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, is a topic I love to write about, and it concerns how your building and natural (or unnatural) environment effect your health, life, and business.  This teacher told us how one of those “other” teachers gave out all of his feng shui secrets in the first two lessons, and nobody came back for the third lesson.  So, my Feng Shui teacher decided to only give out a few secrets per class, and really go into detail about his personal experiences analyzing charts of particular houses and businesses who had particular attributes that corresonded to those particular secrets or shall we say, “rules”. In any case, he devised a system where there was class one weekend per month, and you could keep coming back for two years, and then take the entire seminar series all over again to deepen your knowledge.  His school was booming.  The only flaw in his system was that my questions were not adequately answered, and the solution offered was for me to wait a year and retake the particular class I didn’t understand at great expense.  I said good bye.  This strategy of giving out secrets a little bit at a time is very culturally Chinese — fast enough for some — too slow for many.

Giving secrets as a way of developing trust

The business world revolves around trust — or the lack of it.  People give big money to those they trust, but nobody trusts a stranger or a crook.  Knowledge is hard to find, so people like to associate with those who give them knowledge.  If I want to attract a client, my strategy is to solve their problems, and then I will win them over.  People come to me with a question, and I will try to give them an answer that is much better than they expected.  Then, I invite them to email me if they have any more needs.  People love this, and then are very willing to spend money buying a place on my directory.  So, giving out precious knowledge can get you huge returns and helps build lasting relationships.

Giving out secrets helps — but, how many secrets is the right amount?

If you are too secretive, people might not trust you.  In my experience, companies that have secrets, often are hiding a lot of information. I have never had a good experience with companies or groups that systematically keep me in the dark in regards to critical information.  But, if you give out TOO MUCH valuable information to someone, they could steal your business secrets and use them against you.  In my experience, giving valuable information to others will get YOU ahead as much as it gets the recipient.  Just don’t give them any information which could result in them putting you out of business or directly competing against you.  You always have to keep some of your secrets to yourself no matter how generous you are!

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The concept of lower middle management

August 1, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The concept of lower middle management

It is a well known fact that labor in India is plentiful, especially technically accomplished labor. But, with a short supply of qualified management to go around, many companies in India are very disorganized.  If workers are not managed properly, they will submit work as completed when many steps in the work were omitted or done incorrectly. This has been my personal experience. American workers do this too, but not quite to the extent that workers in India do.   In India, the salary for a skilled project manager or middle level manager can be the equivalent of US$40,000 per year, or perhaps 1.5 Lakhs per month in India.  This is roughly 7x the rate that a company would pay for a single experienced call center rep or programmer. My numbers could be off because I have not been in India for a few years, but the numbers are close enough to make my point.

So, there is no solution, right?  Not so.  India has plenty of people who love to nitpick others, and mind other people’s business.  Even those who are not techno-saavy might be qualified to micromanage others if they have good organizational skills.  The older generation in India typically lacks technical skills, but many have good thinking and organizational skills, and would be very qualified with a little training to micromanage workers.  Additionally, this new class of micromanagers that I am proposing might  be able to perform work tasks at even LESS than the cost of the programmers or call center staff members since no technical expertise would be necessary.

The key here is to teach these lower-middle managers how to make check lists of what to check. If a worker has a particular assignment, being able to find the records of what was assigned, when it was to be finished, and what the specifications are would be the first step.  Checking to see that everything had been accomplished to specs would be the next step.  Creating evalutaion statistics and saving them would be the most valuable and final step.  These micromanagers (nagging pests) could revolutionize companies by letting them know who the reliable workers are and who the unreliable ones are.  Score sheets could be assigned to workers each month.  Maybe Praveen might be a 90% accuracy rate for his work and get a promotion while Surrendra might only get a 20% accuracy rate and be fired.

A joke to finish this post!

I’ll send this article with a joke — but, a realistic one.  Ramesh shows up at a job interview to be the “nagging representative” or glorified micromanager — whichever you call it.  The boss reviews Ramesh’s resume, has a brief chat with Ramesh, and is not so impressed. The boss says, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”.   The next day Ramesh’s mother shows up and barges into the office.  She has a checklist of all the things her son is good at and she rattles off the checklist.  She then says, “You were supposed to call Ramesh at exacly 1pm IST today, but we never heard from you, how are we supposed to rely on companies like yours?”.

Needless to say, the boss was very impressed with Ramesh’s mother’s organizational skills and thought she would be perfect to manage his workers even though she didn’t know the first thing about programming.  So, the boss said, “You’re hired! Welcome aboard. When can you start?”  The mother said, “Ramesh will be here bright and early tomorrow morning”. The boss said, “No, I can not hire that clown, I am offering YOU a job — you are perfect.. You are organized to a T, and you don’t allow anyone to get away with a single flaw, not even a missed phone call”.

Then Ramesh’s mom Vidhya goes to have chai with the neighbors — Mr. and Mrs. Reddy.  Vidhya said, “I can’t believe I got a job… I am the head nagging agent for Krishnatech Infosoft!”.  Then Mr. Reddy said, “Oh, I am not surprized, you are excellent at nagging”.  Then Mrs. Reddy said, “Prakash, watch your mouth!”.  Then Mr. Reddy said, “Oh sorry, what I meant was that you are very … assertive and punctilious”. Mrs. Reddy responded, “Please forgive Prakash, he has had a few cups of masala chai too many today!”  Vidhya said, “I know people accuse me of nagging too much, but now I can get PAID for nagging — the boss said he needs this type of personality, providing I don’t over do it!”

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Improving your credibility at a call center

July 28, 2012 by admin
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Improving your credibility at a call center

How to acquire clients for call centers
If you want overseas clients to trust you when you work at or run an Indian or Filipino Call Center, then you need credibility.  If you speak English like someone who has never set foot on American soil, but claim to be in Newark, NJ, who will believe you? We may be bad at math in the United States, but we are not complete fools.    If you are going to fake an American location, then you should be really sound like an Indian who has lived in the United States for a few years, and that will only be possible if you have been working with Americans for many years.  In fact — if you are that good at American English, nobody will question your location in the first place!

Verifying information looks professional
Another issues is presentation.  A guy called me from India trying to tell me that there was something wrong with my computer. He couldn’t tell me which MSN office informed him of the problem with my computer, nor could he tell me my full name or address.  He butchered my first name, and had no clue as to what my other personal information was.  If he had clearly announced who he was, his company name and location, and asked to speak to me, then he would have established some credibility. The next step would be to verify my address, so that he could be sure that my address was the one with the allegedly “infected” computer.  The third verification should have been to ask how many computers were in the house, so he could isolate which one had trouble.  If someone in Pune could accurately tell me what is wrong with my computer in Los Angeles (and be correct about it) without ever having met me, I would be very impressed.

Your phone # should match your claimed location
If you are claiming that your company is in Brooklyn, NY, you should ideallly NOT have a Marathi phone number.  Instead, you should have a phone number that is from New York City — preferably in the 718 area code.  Phone numbers can be bought and sold, so there is no excuse not to have a vanity number!

Long speeches without allowing questions doesn’t work
I had a call center worker call me and he went rambling on for almost two minutes without letting me get a word in edgewise. In fact, he took offense and raised his voice at me when I tried to ask a question. You would gain the good graces of prospective clients better if you engage them in a well rehearsed dance of dialogue.  You ask a question, they answer, then they ask a question, and then you answer. People feel happier when they are a PART of the conversation and not just a sound board.

Seeing if your prospect is interested is a good approach
Many Indians will just push their product on anyone without bothering to see if the person is interested or not.  People can be very pushy in India, and Americans don’t like this at all.  It is polite to first verify if the person at the end of the line is interested in talking to you about your offer or proposal before going on.  It might be good to start with a speech that quickly announces the dangers of not having your product, and THEN ask if the prospect is interested…

Example

Call Center Worker — Hi this is Jack from Computer Verify in Brooklyn, NY.  May I speak to John Doe please?
Prospect — Yes, this is John
Call Center Worker — John, are you still residing at 10 Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90001?
Prospect — Yes, I am still at that address.
Call Center Worker — We have been informed by Mictosoft that a computer at your address has been infected with spyware which can eventually render your computer disfunctional.  Would you be interested in learning how to protect your computer from this type of danger?
Prospect — Gee, that is interesting, my computer runs just find and I have virus protection. Are you sure you have the correct address?
Call Center Worker — Yes, it says 10 Hill Street… But, there was no apartment number.
Prospect — Hmmm. Interesting.  And which local Microsoft office told you that my computer has a problem?
Call Center Worker — The offer that reported to us is located in Sunnyside, IL — they may have obtained this information from a third party.

I recently had a very similar conversation with a call center worker, however he was unable to answer any of my questions, yet I couldn’t get him to stop talking — how annoying!

So, the bottom line is — if you want to know how to get call center clients or find call center clients — develop practices that boost your credibility!

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