Running ragged? Overworking and losing your head?

September 27, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

It is happening to me. I normally bathe once a day, and maintain a semi-normal sleep schedule. Sure, I go to bed late and wake up late, but that is normal for me because I’m a cat in a human body! I’m a Leo for those of you who are astrology fans, although I don’t know what my Rashi is because I’m not Indian!

But, recently, I’ve been trying to finish up on projects. I’m so glued to my computer that I forget to eat, and am only bathing once in two days which is abnormal for me. My mind is not focused. I’m losing at board games which I am also playing online. I’m spending too many hours in front of a screen and it is harming my eyes and brain. I need a vacation and a hot bath, but let me finish a few more blog articles first.

Studies have shown that those who try to over do it lose their efficiency. I can vouch for the fact that I am so distracted that I am not working anywhere near peak efficiency.

My bird-brained-ness from overworking caused me to do something insane yesterday. I went to Whole Foods. I purchased a few items. I picked up the salmon, ate it outside, and then it was time for chocolate. I noticed that the chocolate was not in the bag. I checked my receipt and I had not been charged for it either. So, I went back and asked the lady cashier what happened to the chocolate. She said she didn’t have it and didn’t see it. I asked her to hold my bag (I held on to my receipt because I’m a smart bird-brain, not a dumb bird-brain) and went to get the chocolate. Two minutes later I was back in line, bought the chocolate and asked for my bag with the wine and macadamia nuts.

The girl claimed that I never gave her a bag. I told her the story about how four minutes ago I gave her the bag because I needed to get the missing chocolate. She didn’t remember that at all. I started raising my voice and demanding a manager. The girl doing bagging at the next counter said that I had purchased this from the girl two registers to the left. I walked over there and there was my bag. The two girls looked somewhat similar — similar enough that if you were a distracted bird-brain who stared at a computer twelve hours a day and didn’t sleep enough, you could easily confuse them. What a nightmare.

The moral of the story is, keep an eye (a bird’s eye view preferably) on your workers. If you notice them becoming like me, try to have them take some time off, take a bath, get a massage, take a walk or a hike, and relax. There is a limit to how much a human being (or a cat) can do (or a bird.) Give people the exact amount of time off that they need to be the best cat, bird or bird-brained human that they can be!

Understanding “Twitter Minutes” & the Google Algorithm

September 27, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Social Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

What is a Twitter minute? Does it matter?
A Twitter minute is a term I invented while staring at my Google Analytics statistics. I was appalled and saddened when I found out that the thousands I had spent on Twitter PPC had gotten me the highest bounce rate in the Twitterverse as well as the Twittersphere. People only spend a few seconds on my page on average, although we got a lot of sign ups on my Twitter account. The average time spent on my page by organic Twitter followers was over two minutes while the pay-per-click crowd averaged about four seconds. Bizarre.

A Twitter Minute = sixty seconds spent on my blog from a visit from someone that found our link on Twitter

The Google Algorithm
Basically, what counts is that Google algorithm rewards your main site when your blog gets more traffic, particular more traffic from social media. But, if the time spent on your blog from new visitors is only four seconds, what happens? Do you get penalized, or do you get a benefit? The answer is neither. You can spend hours on the internet reading about the Penguin algorithm, the Panda algorithm and lots of other cool names, but those articles will tell you nothing useful about how the algorithms apply to you other than the fact that it is very bad to have poor quality incoming links!

My strategy for getting higher quality clicks
Having photos and pics on my blogs would make a difference. Nice looking pics double Facebook engagement, and would lengthen the amount of time people spend on my blog pages. Another helpful thing to do is to have paragraph headers and bold them. It is easier to read a long article that is cut into bite sized easy to digest pieces.

Twitter minutes as a tool to measure your various campaigns
I have a dozen social media campaigns going on simultaneously, and I’m always comparing them. My main measure used to be how many clicks I got to my blog pages or site pages. This matters. But, after my tragedy on PPC, Twitter minutes is my new measure. Of course if a click comes from Google+, and recently I have been getting many from there, then I can no longer really call it a Twitter minute. It would be a plus minute.

Calculations comparing social media platforms
I calculated how much time I put into Google+, and calculated the rewards. The most effective use of my time was posting my blog entries on their community pages, and I post on many! I get to learn which of my blog entries are interesting to the masses, and also get to see what my bounce rate is. If I spend an hour posting on Google+, I might get about 70 clicks, each of which averages about 35 seconds. If I spruced up those blog articles that did exceptionally well with expensive pics and artfully rewritten text and submitted only those really popular articles on a regular basis, I might get over 100 clicks and over a “Plus Minute” in reading time.

With Twitter, the calculation is different. On Google+, I post mainly to other people’s communities. On Twitter, I have my own communities — six to be exact, and soon to add a few more. The interesting thing with Twitter, is that the efficiency of the time you spend posting is directly proportional to how many relevant and active followers you have in your network. You could spend 90 seconds posting to a group with one million reasonable quality followers and get 10,000+ clicks. Or you could spend the same 90 seconds on a network with one hundred followers and not get a single click. With Twitter, I can calculate how long it will take me to accumulate a critical mass of followers. I can calculate how many Twitter minutes of reading time I will get once I have that mass as well. It is hard to compare a fixed target to a moving target like Twitter.

Summary
When optimizing your social media campaigns, you need to understand the following. You don’t need all of your blog articles to be favorites. They don’t all have to have pics. It is good to do experimental ideas in your blog to see what your audience likes. If they like a particular theme or title, then you can spruce it up after the fact, or completely rewrite it and publish it again! If you are going to promote particular blog articles again and again, you are getting inefficient results on your sweat equity if you don’t have optimized articles. That means beautifully written, great keywords, pics, and very popular titles. The title is 30% of your popularity right there!

Four likely effects of using a false name!

September 27, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Indians are notorious for using false names at call centers. I even met a few very well spoken gentlemen in the .net programming business who used Anglo names. They didn’t want to tell me what their real name was.

But, what are the effects of using a false name?

(1) You will lose credibility. There are many people out there who will assume that if you misrepresent your name, you will lie about other things as well. I have learned that this is unfortunately true. The sad thing is that so many people in India lie about their names and lie about everything else as well. If you ruin your credibility, that is for life — at least with that particular client who you ruined it with. Unfortunately, you undermine the credibility of others who are associated with you as well when you lie. People will judge others from your country because of your fabrication!

(2) People might be more comfortable with your name. Many in America cannot pronounce multi-syllabic Indian names. Worse yet, they might not like some of the names. God forbid your name is Ousama or Hussein. Muslims typically have names like this! Many westerners might like the fact that you have a name like David which they can pronounce!

(3) You might gain a sense of freedom having a new name. You are no longer Chakrapani Balasubramanium. You are now, Rick Smith, an aspiring American businessman, who for some reason ended up in an Indian Call Center! You might feel a sense of liberation by being freed from the oppressive and narrow-minded restrictions of Indian culture! You might even start eating hamburgers and dating girls with no thought of marriage — how American!

(4) You might also feel a sense of alienation. If you feel close to your culture, and distant from Western culture, you might not like being Rick Smith. You might say, “I don’t feel like a Rick Smith.” Honestly, it is hard to feel close to a culture unless you socialize in it. And even if you socialize in that culture, if they are mean, discriminate against you, or are just plain boring, you will not identify with them in the long run.

So, if you are not sure about having an alias name, try it out for a week or month, and see how it goes. Have your mom call you by that name, your sisters, brothers, friends, enemies, and so on. Try it out, Rick!

Tweets:
(1) What are the effects of using a false name in business besides losing credibility?
(2) If you misrepresent your name, will you lie about other things too?

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Social Media: The analytics are deceiving

September 27, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many of us use twitter regularly, communicate with friends on facebook, and read blogs. I learn a lot from these networks when I find good providers which account for less than 1% of the total. But, since the world wide web encompasses all states, regions, and continents of the world, that less than 1% accounts for many amazing providers — and that is all I need.

Your followers are not human
But, what people don’t realize is that most of your followers are DORMANT, useless, or not targetted to your industry. Some of your followers might not even be humans. They could be robots. Maybe you should tweet about what type of oil to use, and you will get more robot followers.

Assessing the value of your accounts
How do you assess the value of your social media accounts for your business? Do you talk to your followers? Do your new clients say, “I found you on facebook”? Do your analyics suggest that your twitter account is driving your SEO positioning up on google even though few people actually click on your links to articles embedded in your tweets? I hear all of these things regularly. So, social media is helping me in all types of ways, but the analytics are deceiving, and the good analytics are not obvious.

Yes, Twitter makes a big difference
The good news is that yes, twitter is helping my ranking on google. Yes, Facebook gets me tons of new clients. Yes, we have great discussions on Facebook. But, oh my god, only 12% of my followers are in my specific industry? Is that high or low? Is that normal? Oh my god, I average only two clicks for each blog article I promote on my twitter with 2500 followers? Are my blogs boring? I think they are really interesting. Hmmm.

Clicks are more than they seem
What I learned is that those two clicks per average article are actually like gold. I learned that those are comparable to a multi-million dollar client purchasing his initial $20 purchase from your company. There will be a long succession of $20 purchases every week for years to come. Yes, the $20 looks small, but 52 of those per year os $1040, and in five years it is $5200. Hmm. It all sounds better now. I learned this from STOPPING promoting a particular twitter account. My blog traffic tapered off a lot. I don’t have the exact analytics of how many exact referals I got from Twitter in a particular month. But, if I lost 40 referrals, my traffic went down by 200. The numbers simply didn’t add up. So, I learned not to look at how many referrals I got. I learned to look at what I was doing on Twitter during a particular month, and how my top line blog statistics were for the next 90 days. Delayed reaction is a huge consideration in web analytics.

Everything went limp
STOPPING TWITTER outreach for a few months was the best thing I did for my business. Not because Twitter was not working. It was for the exact opposite reason. I realized that my blogs lost traffic, my site lost traffic, retweets went down, and many analytics for my business became stagnant the minute we stopped outreach. I didn’t realize how powerful it was, especially when you assessed the value of monetizing the results.

A Novice would have been fooled
PEOPLE LOVE our Facebook much more than our Twitter. A novice web-preneur would be fooled and invest more in their Facebook account. Mistake. Google is the one in charge here, and they are much more impressed by success on Twitter. Why is this? Twitter is hard. No matter what you do, the response is minimal unless you are a seasoned pro. Getting interaction is like sucking a bottle of water out of a rock in the desert. If you can get interaction and growth on Twitter — you have skill and value in Google’s mind, and Google is really smart. We can all learn from Google. They don’t necessarily publish what they value, but ask the experts and study your statistics and you will learn what they like.

Are you bad at communication but good at work?

September 26, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many people who are in Web Design, Programming, Data Entry, or other outsourcing professions are just not good at interacting. The boss of these people might tell you that they were not hired for their social skills. You can say that again. But, the problem is: to work with someone, you need to be able to communicate with them. If they just can’t function, or refuse to communicate, it is very difficult.

I have dealt with enough people, so I can guess the quality of someone’s work purely by how they communicate. I’m generally not that far off. Guessing if they will be responsible doing their work is another hurdle that I have not yet learned go gauge, simply because nobody I’ve hired for technical work has ever been responsible. I have no profile of a winner to base future analysis on.

The message that I keep sending managers and workers is that if you want to do well in your business, don’t be lobsided in your abilities. If you are good at Data Entry, but lousy at communicating, learn to communicate too. Hire a teacher to teach your workers how to communicate better. Teach people how to answer a phone. Believe it or not, answering a phone professionally is too difficult even for 99% of call centers in India. That is part of the reason the business is all going South — or East to the Philippines! Indians just don’t take business etiquette seriously, an India will remain a 3rd rate country until this attitude changes.

Elements of communication

(1) Answering the phone
Announce who you are in a clear tone of voice. Don’t make people guess. Don’t ask them a question to evade answering the question that they asked. Be helpful and clear in your communication when answering the phone.

(2) Answer questions clearly
Don’t just put people on hold without their consent only to get hung up on. Indians do this all day long and that is why most American companies don’t want anything to do with anyone in India. If someone asks you a question, try to answer it.

(3) Transferring
When transferring a call, make sure there is someone on the forwarded line who can talk. Nobody likes to be put on hold only to be disconnected as I mentioned in point two. Make sure that they get to talk to someone even if you have to try ten times.

(4) Being there
If you have a company where there is never anyone to talk to, it is time to hire some new people. Sure, nobody is around 100% of the time. But, if you have to call eight times just to reach someone who is intelligent, something is wrong.

(5) Giving feedback
Do you get back to people on your own, or do you wait for them to harass you to figure out what is going on. Good communication involves taking the initiative to initiate correspondence on your own initiative and getting back to people fast. Don’t keep people waiting or guessing.

(6) Discussing issues
Are you able to discuss complicated issues in an honest and helpful way? Some people can’t think clearly, evade, or just bull-shit their way through issues. Nobody respectable will accept this type of communication. Handle complicated issues in an intelligent way. Spend time thinking through the problems so that you can give good answers.

These are the main points regarding communication that many people need help with. Even those of us who are above average in communication sometimes omit critical information in our communications. Just try to be the best at what you do. On the other hand, if you are good at communication, but bad at doing your job, then learn to do your job!

If you were American, would you hire your company?

September 26, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Look into the mirror and ask yourself this question:

Q. If I were American, would I hire my company?

A. If you start screaming and running the opposite direction, that is a subtle hint that you need to change certain things about how your company functions. Have you ever thought about asking an American what they think of your outsourcing company? Even if your clients are not American, Indians love higher standards. Indians are very tolerant of LOW standards because they have no choice. However, the minute you offer them higher standards, they like it a lot.

A#2. If your answer is that you WOULD want to hire your company if you were an American, that is a subtle hint that you need to change certain things about how your sense of REALITY functions which is a lot harder than giving your company a tune up. My assistant calls dozens of overseas companies. We have yet to find a company that she would be enthusiastic about hiring in India or the Philippines. I am sorry to say this. Every company we call needs a tune up. The companies that we think well of are multinational companies functioning in India — but, those are not Indian companies (technically) — unless they are bid multinational companies that originated in India, but that have global standards. The little companies we deal with seem to not have global standards – or any standards.

So, what can you do?

(1) Answer the phone professionally (less than 10% of Indian companies do this)

(2) Get back to people who ask questions (good luck if you are dealing with India)

(3) Make sure your staff does their work correctly (this is a problem worldwide, but worse in India)

(4) Make sure your staff gets work done on time. (India is actually better about this than America)

These are only four things to master. They are really critical, and I have not seen too many companies who can get all four points correct. If you master these four points, the rest is details. BTW, point #1 takes 5 minutes to master, yet 90% of companies in India seem to refuse to learn this point. It makes such a strong impression with overseas clients when you answer the phone well.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to run a quality outsourcing company!

Just apply basic common sense. And if you don’t have common sense — no problem, just ask me!

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Pharmaceutical Research in India

September 26, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Pharmaceutical Research & Analytical Services in India

Pharmaceutical research is India’s next outsourcing growth industry. Although India is the world leader in outsourcing, many of its industries are threatened by highly capable foreign competition. Chinese are fierce competition in the IT / Software arena due to their exceptional skills and infrastructure while the Philippines can easily compete with India for Call Center work due to their natural language abilities and cultural ties to the West. Despite these two countries that form a serious threat to India’s outsourcing industry, India has many other talents up its sleeve. Accounting, BPO – Business Process Outsourcing, Data Entry, Legal Process Outsourcing, and Pharmaceutical Research and Analytical services are some of the most common. Pharmaceutical analytical services is still a small industry in India comparitively, but it is expected to grow quickly to become a multi-billion dollar industry in just three or four years.

Competitive edge
India has a competitive edge in Pharmaceutical analysis because they have fast turnaround, low costs, minimal downtime compared to other countries, plus good protection for intellectual property rights which puts Chinese competition in a very unattractive position from a relative perspective. It seems that each country has comparative strengths and weaknesses deriving from their culture, economy, and legal system.

Skill sets in India
Additionally, the skill sets available in India are excellent for Pharmaceutical analysis as India has many scientifically trained individuals capable of developing combinatorial chemistry, chemical synthesis, new synthetic molecules, and plant derived candidate drugs.
Although India has a shortage of molecular biologists, it has many talented chemists who are critical for the pharmaceutical research business.

Growth Rates
According to Wikipedia, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is the second largest in the world by volume and is likely to lead the manufacturing sector of India. India’s biotech industry achieved a 17% growth during the 2009-2010 financial year. Drug manufacturing is another huge multi-billion dollar related industry in India.

Diversity in Climate and Genes
India has a wide variety of climates and one of the widest varieties of gene pools in the world, making it a wonderful testing ground for new drugs. There are desert environments in the Northwest, tropical environments near the coasts, mountains in the North, and California-like conditions in Pune. The population has a mixture of many races with European looking people in parts of the extreme North and Northwest, Asian looking people in parts of the East, and even people with Iranian and Afghani ancestry in Muslim populations in the Northwest, not to mention many individuals who look like they have African genes in parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerela. India is one of the most genetically diverse places on earth.

Pharmaceutical Research on 123outsource.net
We will be featuring a few pharmaceutical analytical companies in our BPO section on 123outsource.net. We are not going to create a separate category for this type of company until we reach a critical mass of twenty or more companies.

Diversity and a country’s economy

September 26, 2010 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Diversity and a country’s economy

America is a bizarre country.  The majority of the population is white and has been around for at least five to ten generations.  Most blacks came to America in the 1700’s and early 1800’s. Then, there are descendents of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and other places whose ancestors came around the turn of the century (around 1880 to 1920).  Lastly, there is a huge new wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia which became a huge population boom around the 1980’s and the population of their ethnic groups continues to grow in the United States whether the border is open or closed.

The sad fact is that Americans are incapable of doing most of the critical jobs which keep this country going.  If you visit hi-tech companies, you will notice that the majority of the workers are Asians, or children of Asians.  Very few people with lineage in America can handle computer programming, engineering, or other technically demanding tasks.  If you visit factories and farms that involved heavy or hard labor, you will quickly notice, that unassimilated Mexicans, Guatemalans, and a few Southeast Asians seem to often be the majority (or entirety) at many of these types of jobs.

White Americans are now complaining that they are no longer a majority in terms of the birth rate in America. However, without people from other countries and their children populating our country, our economy couldn’t function at all.

Our economy is very ethnically segmented to the point that it is ridiculous. You will see Gujarathi Indians managing a majority of Hotels throughout the United States.  South Indians and Chinese will be doing most of the programming jobs.  Mexicans will be doing a lot of the farm work, painting, gardening, and manufacturing.  Blacks are very prevalent in government jobs and sports.  Jews are dominant in the film industry, law firms, accounting, and the music industry.  In Los Angeles, Persians dominate the textile industry ownership. Gas stations are heavily owned by Punjabi Indians, Arabs, and other groups.  It sometimes seems that one or two ethnic groups is ASSIGNED to each niche in the economy, and without even one of the ethnic groups that makes up America were absent, that the entire country’s economy would grind to a slow and dismal halt.  On the one hand, having too many different groups creates a lot of divisions and discrimination. On the other hand, we would not be prosperous without this odd mixture of people.

If you travel to states where there are 85% or more whites, there is not much properity.  There is very little industry in white dominated areas like Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.   States in the deep South are generally 70% white and 30% black, and they have very little going on economically either.  States like California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and a few others, that have a dynamic mixture of types of people seem to have thriving economies and are at the cutting edge of technological development as well. So, diversity is critical to America’s economic survival, but, what happens when diversity becomes the majority, and Americans with lineage here become an inconsequential minority?

What about the lack of Diversity in India?

INDIA is a country that has some diversity, but nothing like America’s.  There is a Hindu majority, and a Muslim minority which has a higher birth rate than the Hindus.  It seems clear that one day the Muslim population will outnumber the Hindus.  There are Sikhs, Janes, Parsis, Christians, and even 5000 Jews in India (most left to live in Israel recently).  But, these population groups are all Indian.  There is racial diversity in the sense that there are some very Aryan looking types in parts of the North and very Chinese looking types in Manipur and Assam. There is diversity in Caste, but modern day urban Indians do not do what their castes are supposed to do.  Most Brahmans don’t pray, most Kshetriyas don’t lead (or at least don’t lead properly), half of all Vysyas don’t sell anything, and perhaps the Sudras are still doing some actual work.  That is one out of four castes who is fulfilling their dharmic purpose in human existance.  But, beyond the superficial home-grown diversity, India has nothing like the diversity that America has.

Imagine an India with Asians. You would be able to get a REAL acupuncturist instead of the fakes that exist in most Indian metros.  You would be able to get real Thai or Chinese food, and not this fake Indianized Chinese food with soupy dishes and rice dishes that use basmati rice and too much pepper.  Imagine an India with a small population of white Americans.  White Americans would be a miracle for India’s middle management shortage.  The Indian economy would be revolutionized by just a few thousand Americans living there.  Imagine if India had people from other countries who started restaurants serving food from around the world.  Imagine if India had African-Americans who joined the Bollywood entertainment industry and shared their dance moves (Indians are borrowing these moves on their own by watching American videos in any case).  India would be five times as good if they had even a little bit of diversity.  Even if 1% of the population was a mix of foreign born people with something to share, it would be a miracle.

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Giving up control of your work

September 26, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Giving up control
 
When you outsource to an overseas BPO company, or even give work to another individual to do, you are giving up some control. They do the work their way, and when they want to.  I personally even have this issue when I give simple tasks to a new assistant. 
 
The issues can be various, but in order for a company to grow, they have to delegate tasks to responsible entities who can effectively take care of them in the long run.  Sure, the other company will do things their way, and on their time table, but if the job gets satisfactorily done, that is the bottom line. 
 
On the other hand, if you hire a company who you have to fire, or if they stop work, then you can get yourself badly behind schedule and in a real bind. 
 
However, the fact that your job is outsourced globally doesn’t make much difference from it if were given to the girl next door — except that the culture is different and the phone communication has time zone issues.  Companies are companies wherever you go, and a good outsourced one will be crucial to the development of your company’s growth.
 
Keeping metrics on how the new company is doing is hard. People work at their own speed, and the quality of their work can be very difficult to determine, especially with communication.  If you give a data entry job to someone, you can count how many forms they fill out in a specific time period, and what their error rate is.  But, with custom programming, how can you tell if they are fast or slow, good or bad,unless you are very experienced.
 
What if someone is doing customer service for you, how can you tell how good they are? You can ask the clients they spoke to how their experience was, and base your opinion on feedback.  If someone is doing sales, then you can look at how many sales they make, but what if they made sales by exaggerating facts about your service?
 
The biggest issue is really your comfort zone.  Learning to be comfortable having others do your work is critical, and finding the right “others” to do your work is the next hurdle.

Outsourcing Notary Work

September 26, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: America | Tagged | 2 Comments

Outsourcing Notary Work
 
Many people think of outsourcing as hiring a company in another country to handle some of your back office tasks, and sometimes it is.  Companies overseas also hire American companies to do all types of tasks as well, generally tasks involving a higher level of technology since our labor rate is expensive.  But, hiring another company in your same town to do tasks that your own company can not efficiently do, is another type of outsourcing.
 
Notary Outsourcing
Mortgage documents used to be signed at banks, and lender’s offices throughout the nation.  California and Florida have led the nationwide trend towards mobile notaries that the rest of the states are now engaging in as well.  For the last decade or more, independent mobile notaries trained in loan signing have been outsourced to take over what used to be the jobs of employees.  Its easier.  You don’t have to do payroll, pay benefits, or even pay at all in many cases.
 
Free labor?
Notaries beware!  Background checks are an absolute necessity.  No!  Not companies background checking you. You have to background check them to make sure they feel a responsibility to pay notaries for their work.  Otherwise, you will end up a statistic.  I could estimate that 5% of loan signing jobs go unpaid.  The non-paying company might have gone belly-up, or perhaps the notary made a mistake.  In some cases, the loan didn’t go through, the signing company didn’t get paid, and they decided to take the liberty to not pay the notary.  “Notaries Ye Be Warned!!!”  There are pirates out there!
 
No Responsibilities
If business is slow, you just don’t hire anyone.  If you have bank employees, the salaries have to be paid every week of every month whether their is business or not. Loan signing business is typically faster during the last week of the month, and some months are faster than others.
 
Outsourcing can often save a company a lot of money.  However, by outsourcing your notary work, you lose control of who is doing the work.  Independent notaries are not always the best trained.  Most are not certified by any agency, and lack the experience and suaveness to handle sticky situations.  The highly experienced notaries generally want to get paid very handsomely.  So, outsourcing has its pros and cons, but its the standard way of business in the notary world today!

Are Outsourcing Contracts Just Another Trap?

September 25, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Sometimes, people need contracts.

You need one if you are a millionaire and you suspect your wife is marrying you for your money. You need one if you are buying a property or an office and you don’t know the seller personally (or maybe even if you do). You should have one with an employee or an employer or an attorney or a contractor who performs a service .

What about outsourcing? How much contract do you need, and how much is too much?

We are living in a time when people do not trust each other, and even if they do, there is always doubt. Things seem to change in a moment. Even if you have known someone for years, some crisis may strike and you will need to have something in writing to document your original understanding and agreement. Also, people are under a great deal of stress and two parties do not always remember things the same way. Finally, if you are outsourcing, you may not be familiar with the other culture, and it is good to put certain agreements in writing. Actually, a contract can tell you quite a bit about the party you are doing business with. These are all good reasons to have a contract.

However, most contracts are too complex for a simple agreement, and are one-sided: they do not protect both parties equally. Such a contract may show that the outsourcing company just wants to make money, and isn’t really interested in a good business relationship at all. When you see a contract like this, you may get the feeling you would rather not do business with this company at all.

One company we proposed to outsource some IT work to insisted that we sign a contract even before we gave them a one-hour sample project, and one wanted a contract even before they quoted us on several projects. We felt uncomfortable; this seemed extreme.

If you feel you have a good connection with a company, they should be willing to do a few basic things for you without a contract so that you can see how they work. Of course, if it involves giving them codes or confidential information, you will want some kind of understanding in writing. But if you do not already have a good understanding with the company by talking to them on the phone or in person, no contract will make it better…and if you do have a good understanding with them, there is no need to put in writing anything more than that understanding of details you already have and maybe a few details you have questions about. If the contract makes both parties feel safe, it may work…but the best contracts are drawn up by the two parties together , after they have had a chance to work together.

A good basic contract should include the names of the companies, responsible parties (business managers, project managers, or whoever is communicating the information), the scope of the work to be done, the dates, approximate number of hours, the fees, and time frame in which the work is to be completed. If the contract is for a call center, it may include training procedures and specific dos and don’ts plus frequent conferences and feedback. But it is fruitless to create an extensive contract before you have had a chance to work with the company on a short project. If a company wants a huge time commitment at the beginning–until you see the results, it makes no sense to sign a contract that binds you to a certain number of hours or fees plus extra fees for circumstances you never even wanted to consider.

In our experience, lengthy and confusing legal contracts up front only serve to show that at least one of the parties has had bad experiences or has not fulfilled some part of the bargain in the past. If this is true, you might want to keep interviewing companies until you find one you have a good understanding with. Nine times out of ten, when you find the right company, they will be willing to do a test project without an extensive, constrictive contract. After a test project, you can sign anything you think is needed–because you will have an idea of who they really are and how the work gets done.

You might also like:

International contracts to watch out for!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/14/i-refuse-to-sign-international-contracts-to-watch-out-for/

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

How consumers engage w/small businesses on Facebook

September 25, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

More than half of consumers claim that Facebook is the most practical social medium for researching small businesses before making a purchase. There are various metrics on Facebook that allow the customer to get a sense of how good the company in question might be. First of all, Facebook posts often get great commentary from followers. Twitter and most other social mediums tend not to get much interaction. Google+ gets interaction, but doesn’t seem to have a very large regular crowd using it. Customers compare how many likes posts get and how many followers a campaign might have. The level of engagement and amusing content is also another factor, but customer reviews and ratings seem to be the most critical factor.

Special Offers Gain The Most Attention
Many companies also have special offers made on Facebook that can be redeemed or utilized in an actual brick and mortar. Additionally, promoted posts lead to more clicks to websites, and promoted posts with sweepstakes or prizes often do quite well.

Other ways that companies interact with their users besides Facebook special offers include:
(1) Promoted posts – which give you the ability to have a hugely augmented reach and get multiple times the visits.
(2) Sponsored stories – which entertain your clients and hence gain you loyalty and frequency of visits.
(3) Photo & video contests – you need a very large crowd to get people to be willing to do this. For small businesses, you might not have a critical mass, but for large businesses, it can result in free content for advertising or something fun to put on youtube.com
(4)Videos that encourage you to use your favorite products – a great way to get your customers to see your products in action.
(5) Prizes, giveaways and sweepstakes – this can be fun for your followers and attract new ones. However, prize giveaways are something that generally are not effective if you do them too frequently. For small businesses, perhaps twice or thrice a year is enough.
(6) Polls & Quizzes – Polls are great for you to learn what your clients like, or say they like. Their purchasing behavior is the real proof, but an added layer of knowledge can be helpful for your analytics department. Quizzes can be fun for some of your followers, but I wouldn’t have quizzes more than once in two months.
(7) Loyalty application promotions – Having a loyalty program can sometimes help a business and sometimes be more trouble than it is worth. But, try it out and see if you get any bites.

What types of businesses do consumers like to interface with on Facebook?
It seems that customers go more for restaurants, spas, and educational profiles on Facebook than for practical services. Facebook is a cyber-place that attracts people who want to relax and enjoy. So, you can see how seeing what’s new on the menu, or what your latest massage treatment is might be pleasing to a Facebook user. LinkedIn attracts more people who are interested in the practical side to business, networking, and having discussions about the technical aspects of their business. I personally run a Facebook for Notary service providers. It is a lively place to discuss technical issues, experiences, and ideas. However, the audience favors talking about personal experiences on the job which makes our profile personable and fun which is typical of a Facebook audience.

How should your company interact with its Facebook profile?
Facebook is a great tool to promote your business, but it is easy to use the network incorrectly. In my experience, the optimal way to use Facebook is to create a fun, engaging and entertaining atmosphere that people want to come back to. Yes, you can promote new products too, but don’t do it in a way that resembles selling. You can have specials too, because specials make people feel good. To create this type of pleasant atmosphere I recommend:

Informative posts with great photos – Facebook is one of the more visually oriented social media networks. Good photos will get you further on Facebook than Twitter for example. Having an interesting article about industry related information with a stunning photo will make people want to visit your page more often. If you are in the Restaurant business, you could have an article about a new type of dessert or steak, and have a sizzling photo to match it.

Regular interactive posts – Discussions are a great way to involve your users. My personal group averages more than a dozen replies per discussion and we are a tiny business. Having a quiz or poll from time to time not only will help you learn more about your users, but gives them a chance to interact with you in a meaningful way. I spend time each month going through several different forums looking for exciting new discussion topics to post and we typically post about 8-10 discussions per month. In your industry that might be too many, so you can experiment and see how well your discussions go.

Having special offers – discounts and specials are important, but don’t overkill. You don’t want your Facebook to look like an inexpensive marketplace. Keep the atmosphere fun, and then have specials from time to time. How often is up to you, but mix it in with the other fun stuff.

Stories – Stories that appeal to the emotions of your followers about experiences of your clients or others in the industry are a great way to get people to feel how their life will be like after they sample your products or services. Or, the story could be about things that your staff or other strangers not connected to you experienced. We use stories regularly and our followers keep emailing me saying how much they enjoy them! Remember, storytelling is the marketing technique of the future, so learn to master this art.

My Experience Marketing on Facebook
My personal experience with social media as a B2B website owner is slightly different than what the statistics might imply. When I make a special offer on Facebook, my newsletter, or anywhere else, it tends to be ignored. On the other hand, if I have a human being reach out to the right segment of my clients and offer them a special offer, it often results in sales (depending on how the industry as a whole is doing.) Our followers tend to like visiting our page regularly, love being involved in discussions, love to learn from other people’s experiences, and are generally fun. We get about 7% of our new clients as a result of our Facebook profile. They tend not to be the most business-like clients though which is not a surprise. Facebook is a feel-good site, and you attract happy people who like to interact on Facebook which is not a bad thing. LinkedIn might be a better place to find more business-oriented clients. As I said, I run a B2B, so the unbusiness-like people I attract on Facebook are in business, but don’t act like they take their business that seriously as a general rule.