Steve Jobs didn’t believe in “systems” for innovation

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I thoroughly enjoyed reading, “The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.” This book was refreshing and mentally stimulating to read. Steve was a guy who was passionate about the creative process and held his workers to the highest of standards. He made more than a dent in the universe, he changed the lives of billions of people. I can’t live without my i-phone, and my assistant has a desktop from Apple that she swears by.

Innovation Classes?
Many companies who create products try to find systems for innovating, or hold classes. To bring out the magic in a person, you need to fertilize their innate capabilities and help them to develop and shine. But, how do you do this? Steve Jobs didn’t like the idea of having principles of innovation and teaching someone the rules. He thought that would be like someone in school trying to be cool, who was not innately cool.

They started in a bedroom
Steve Wosniak of Apple started his operation in his bedroom, then moved to the kitchen, and finally to their garage. Apple started with a lot of passion, tinkering, and making do with the little that they had. If you want to be a successful innovator, does that mean you should start in your bedroom? Maybe, but the fact that innovation is such a zealous obsession would make it highly likely that you would!

Innovation is about creating new ideas to solve problems
It’s not about coming up with some weird new invention that nobody has seen. It’s about coming up with a new way to solve an old problem. But, Apple seems to do it in a very classy fun way. It is fun to open up the box and get out your visually attractive Apple i-phone. The icons look pretty, and the features are very thoughtful. So, it’s more about solving problems, it’s about offering an experience that people will love!

So, what is the secret of innovation?
Just innovate with an unstoppable desire to create something. You will create your own techniques for experimentation and refinement as you go along. There is no set road, and there are no set rules. Just start exploring and don’t stop when you get discouraged!

Google+ suspended me, but I learned something

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Google+ has many members because gmail automatically gives you an account attached to your gmail account. So, the number of users on Google+ is deceivingly high if you look at this top-line analytic. The total amount of active members has also been manipulated. The total number of members who login several times a month might be low, and the total number of members with accounts with 1000+ followers would be a much better analytic for comparisons.

Google+ makes it hard to grow
It is hard to grow a business presence on Google+ by using Google+. If you put a G+ button on your already popular website, that is the easiest way to get followers if you already get big traffic. There are many people using Google+ in social media, travel, and programming. But, other industries have a very sparse presence. Basically, there are very few good accounts to follow. Additionally, Google+ limits the number of accounts you can follow in a day. On Twitter to gain followers, you follow lots of others and then they follow you back. On Google+, only 10% of the relevant people I follow, actually follow me back. It makes it very hard to grow.

Moderators can get you lynched
Posting on Google+ communities is a fast way to get clicks. I posted lots of relevant content in the programming, social media, and outsourcing communities. The content I posted was 100% relevant to each community and hand-picked. I published about 20 pieces per day, and was rejected by seven moderators in a period of a week. This was the biggest reason why I feel I was shut down. So, you can’t follow a lot of people without being stopped, you can’t post content without getting in trouble, what can you do?

The Google Gods can shut you down permanently
If you decide to use Google+, it has some nice features like circles. It is fun, and might make a difference for your SEO rank. But, if you invest heavily in your profile, beware! If you do something that the Google Gods don’t like, they can shut you down permanently. They will probably warn you and suspend you a few times first. But, they are the ones in control, not you. Your investment of hours of your time can be completely wiped out on a whim of the Gods! So, use caution.

I wasn’t informed of what I did wrong
I spent two hours on hold calling Google to try to figure out what I did wrong. Nobody answered and no information was furnished. I used the G+ help feature and got an answer from an answer-giver who didn’t sound like he worked for Google although he was knowledgeable. He said that he was once suspended too, and that they refuse to tell you what you did wrong because they don’t want you gaming the system. I was given a list of policies of what behavior they don’t allow — however, I didn’t feel that I broke any of their guidelines. My only crime was following too many people, and not being popular with a bunch of anal moderators.

How, can I plan my future with G+
I am still allowed to use the “+” feature and have gotten a few new followers using it. Maybe plussing is the way to get ahead on Google+, and not following or posting? It is all a big mystery to me. If you have a large following, then posting on your account will get you lots of exposure, but I only have 150 followers. What to do? I plan to share a lot less on communities. The communities I do share on will be ones that have never rejected a post in the past. I will look carefully and un-join any communities that have moderators that block my posts — ever! I will also post more on my own account since that is safe. I will probably do more plussing since that is also safe. I’m not sure how I will reach the magical 1000 mark where your SEO dreams supposedly come true. Maybe my new techniques will work. What I really want is to find an expert. I have been looking around, but with no luck.

A month after the fact: I have been reinstated on Google. I’m being a lot more careful now. I seldom post on groups as that was what got me in the most trouble (I think.) But, I posted a very helpful article from the best social media account on G+ on one a very relevant community page and the moderator removed it. I’m beginning to think that perhaps G+ makes it hard to grow until you get critical mass of around 1000 followers, and then they help your material get noticed a lot more. I guess I’ll find out. I’m at 200 members now.

Do you start emails with: “Dear respected sir?”

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Don’t do this!

People in India use archaic British English. They routinely omit the person’s name who they are addressing as they systematically don’t know who they are writing to or why. Don’t do this. If you write to someone, know why you are writing to them — specifically. Don’t write to them about “the job” or “the project.” Know which project or job you are writing about and make sure that job actually exists in real time (which means now.) I get 10 job applications for jobs that I am not offering every day. What a clueless waste of time. No wonder India is a 3rd world country. The labor that they do have is systematically either completely wasted or used ineffectively.

Do your research, and make quality interactions — not spamming people with nonsense job applications. And don’t say, “Dear Sir.” Use the person’s name or at least their job title so the reader will know if they are the one being addressed!

People who make the most serious clients want to chat, do you chat?

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are you too busy to chat? Big mistake. How many serious clients are you losing because you are so unfriendly. Higher level business is more about talking than doing. The lower level people do the doing, and you do the interacting. Got it? People who contact you who have more to say, and more to ask, and contact you the most often are also the ones who will spend the most money in the long run even if they are not the richest. This is valuable analytical knowledge that I am sharing with you. I have not seen other blogs with such practical information.

Additionally, others will do more for you if you “chat them up!” If you like someone, take them out to dinner. The closer you get, the tighter your business relationship gets. In business, you will have better luck with people you enjoy being with. They will do better work for you, and you will have a better experience. People who enjoy you want to chat! Do you chat?

If the answer is, sorry, I’m too busy! Then, you are too busy for new clients. If you want new clients, you might not get any. Be open, so that you can interact with critical people as they arise!

Tweet:
(1) People who contact you more often and have more to say are more likely to be the best clients in the long run! Pay Attention!
(2) Are you too busy to chat? How many serious clients did you lose because you were unfriendly?

Turkey BPO Outsourcing

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Turkey BPO Outsourcing
 
Turkey is trying to get into the international outsourcing market. 
 
One article stated that Turkey took advantage of its low labor costs and created forging factories.  They were able to compete well for price, but experience was a commodity that they were short of.  A large supply of engineering graduates was a positive factor that allowed Turkish outsourcing in forging to grow.  Location was one of the biggest benefits.  Turkey is accessible by road to Europe and the Middle East making it a strategic hub for shipping and perhaps in the future, even warehousing.
 
Turkish outsourcers also offer lower cost steele in large quantities.  Although China offers the lowest prices for steele, they sometimes add “hidden costs”, making them perhaps not the best buy in the industry.  Also, if a steele manufacturer doesn’t want its designs to be copied, it should not manufacture in China due to intellectual property rights infringement.  Indian steele manufacturers often have delivery issues due to the poor quality of India roads.  Turkey remains the highest recommended country for structured steele.
 
Turkish Call Centers didn’t start as an industry until 1996.  Today there are about 150 call centers in Turkey with a total of about 12,000 employees.  Most of the call centers service banks and mobile phone companies.  In the last several years, a dozen or so outsourcing companies have been created in Istanbul totaling roughly 2000 workstations.
 
Turkey has many advantages for providing outsourcing services.  Labor is low in cost, and many people speak German, French, and Dutch as Turks residing in Germany and other European countries frequently relocate back to their motherland.  Additionally, labor laws are flexible, transportation to Europe is fast, and its inexpensive to set up facilities.
 
Turkey is expected to grow as an outsourcing destination, especially with German companies.  Turkish outsourcing companies are welcome to get a free listing on 123outsource.net.  Just visit our contact us page!

Should oil companies create their own nations?

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere. I could create a beautiful tiny country, have gardens everywhere and a booming economy. People from around the world would want to live in my country and obey my bizarre laws. I like order and safety, so my laws might be similar to those in Singapore or Dubai for example. The public would be safe, but drug dealers might get their heads chopped off faster than they can say “illegal transport”.

But, I am a simple guy with modest savings. I can’t afford land to build a country, let alone the military power to secure it in this crazy world. But, a multi-billion dollar oil conglomerate could easily buy their own turf — and why not?

Oil companies seem to have a heavy hand in manipulating the US government. We fight wars partly for our perceived national interests and partly to defend or secure the assets of these oil giants. It is true that the US wouldn’t function too well without oil, so there is a reason for this madness. But, what if these oil companies had their own countries and their own militaries?

Imagine if Mobil purchased some land off the coast of Canada or Washington State. Maybe they might prefer the Caribbean so their executives could live in style. If they looked around hard enough, for a few billion, they could get a comfy piece of land or a few nicely sized islands. They could spend some more and get some of the US’s cutting edge military hardware and might be able to lease some top special forces as well. Think of the possibilities. They could have a population of several hundred thousand. They would have their own tax base, based on income from selling oil worldwide. That tax money could be used to live in style, and have a nice military to let the Iraqis and Iranians know who is in charge! If the cost of defending their rigs got too expensive, they might seek greener pastures somewhere else and sell their property to someone else. The oil companies could have the power and freedom to solve their own problems without dragging the US into the equation! Wonderful — perhaps.

For those who say, “No blood for oil”, these oil companies could pay the market price for top notch mercenaries. How much is a human life worth? You could look online to get hourly bids for what people would accept in salaries to risk their life fighting for oil. It would all be much simpler — much more cut and dry. Can you think of a system that would be more honest than this?

It might be fun to live in such a nation too. Your income tax would likely be very low, and there would be lots of ex-patriots to keep you company.

Tweets:
(1) I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere! I want my own country!
(2)… the public would be safe, but drug dealers would get their heads chopped off…

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The art of the email

September 5, 2010 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The art of the email

People email each other all the time.  There are personal emails, business emails, mass emails, bulk emails, spam emails, and more.  The key here is how to make emails effective.

I get emails all the time from India introducing their company to me.  Most do not even mention my name in the email which makes it IMPERSONAL.  This is bad and should be avoided.

I get emails from clueless individuals stating that they are ready for “the” job. There is no job. I never advertised a job.  It is better to ask where I think they might be able to find “a” job.  Don’t go looking for work where it doesn’t exist.

I get emails from companies who want me to give them outsourcing work.  But, they never seem to ask what type of work I am interested in having done.

Making it personal
The key here is to successfully introduce yourself, and your company, and to create a dialogue with the other party. Most emails get discarded without a second thought.  So, the art you need to master is getting favorable attention and creating dialogue.  Step one is to know the name of who you are emailing and something about their company and their needs.  If you send generic emails to many companies, you will get ignored by all. However, if you make a special effort to get to know an INDIVIDUAL and make it personal, you might get some attention, especially if you are providing exactly what that person needs.

Mass emailing
Emailing for business is highly effective, and almost all companies use this tool. However, there are correct and incorrect ways to use this tool. If you email people materials they don’t want, or didn’t ask for, you are going to get marked as a spammer.  However, if you develop rapport with the people you are sending emails to, THEN you can send mass emails, providing that the particular materials you are sending are of interest to ALL members of the group you are mass emailing.  Mass emails can create a magical momentum for blog marketing, or just keeping in touch with your clients. I use mass emailing DAILY, and I do it correctly, and get 20% response rates from blog promotion emails, simply because I know all of the 7000 individuals I am mailing, and know what they like to read about.

Segmenting
Read any MBA book and they will talk about segmenting.  If you are emailing an individual, you customize the content of the email to please the individual who is reading the email. Answer some of their SPECIFIC questions and you win the game.  If you fail to answer their question, but give them a link to some generic page which touches on similar issues, but doesn’t really answer their question, then you alienate the customer by making them feel pushed to the side.   But, if you are emailing a GROUP, how do you customize your email to please the group?  You segment.  If you have 10,000 clients, you figure out how to divide them into groups according to their interests or needs.  My blog promotion emails are sent to people who are active in a particular directory, and I study their click behavior. I keep track of what types of posts or articles they like to click on, and then I write more articles that are similar in nature, although each article is unique!

Conclusion
Step one is to find a way to get to know your contact person.  Answer their particular questions, and find ways to meet their individual needs.  Once you know a person or a group on an individual level, you can email them regularly with materials which they find interesting. The minute you send them materials that they don’t like, or fail to answer their questions, then you lose the game and alienate your contact!

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Cebu Call Centers in the News

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center, Philippines | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Call Center Cebu News issues
 
Expanded Broadband for the Philippines
As PLDT completes its expansion of the domestic fiber optic network, Cebu’s potential as an outsourcing destination gets better and better.  Broadband costs could get lower too.  An increase in call center investments is expected to create many new jobs in the Philippines that will likely mean that the 60 BPO companies in Cebu could expand and that new Cebu call centers could arise.  The new network goes through eleven islands and underwater and is expected to ensure uninterrupted broadband coverage for the entire nation.
 
Asiatown IT Park
In addition to Cebu call centers, there is an Asiatown IT Park in Cebu which is the Philippines second largest concentration of IT industries employing an excess of 15,000 individuals.  
 
BPOs including Indian companies are outsourcing to Cebu!
Wipro, a Bangalore based company, set up a call center in Cebu in 2007.  eBusiness BPO is ready to hire 350 employees for its new headquarters in Cebu in December 2010.  Additionally, the Radisson Blu has opened a 400 room hotel in Cebu.  
 
Hoax bomb threat near Cebu Call Centers
There was a false bomb threat that lead to the vacating of a Cebu city Asiatown IT Park building.  An unidentified caller was the individual who made the threat.  Two K9 teams were unable to find any explosives.
 
To summarize, Cebu, in the Visayas region, is a major economic hub in the Philippines which caters to the call center and BPO industry. As time goes on, you can expect large businesses to be setting up branches in Cebu, especially if they need to have a high quality call center.

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It is not comfortable moving up the food chain

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

My business is growing very slowly. I prefer it that way, so I can keep my frame of reference. I don’t like huge and sudden changes in any case. Life is full of surprises and unexpected turns. Growing a BPO outsourcing business also has issues that come up, and growing pains are a huge one.

When you go from being a worker to a manager, it is completely different. I actually like doing grunt work. It is easy. You just have to do a good job and get it done on time. Managing others is much harder. YOU are responsible when they screw up, and it is not always easy to deal with unpredictable people. My strategy is to try people out on outsourcing projects that don’t matter, that way you can get to know them without having consequences other than the money you spent having them do a fake project!

For many years I operated with the same sales lady, the same programmers, and everything remained the same for the most part. We grew a little, and developed our skills in many facets slowly over time — particularly my SEO skills which I started acquiring in 2008 which saved my life. But, now I am confronted with interviewing dozens of people. I have lots of phone calls with companies I wish to hire for outsourcing as well. I have to test out blog writers, programmers, and assistants as well. This really tires me out.

I remember a day when I had two interviews in my county. One was an hour from my house. After that I went to the other meeting which was twenty-five minutes from the first interview. I had a light dinner, and then went to have wine at a nice hotel not far from my house. I was exhausted. The actual time I spent interviewing was only 90 minutes total in the entire day. It completely drained me out. I began to think that I am not cut out for this higher level type of work. I prefer to do my tasks myself and not do much hiring and firing.

“Will I ever make it up the food chain?”
But, then I thought that if I am ever going to make it up the food chain to higher management, I need to be a pro at hiring and firing. On a more comforting thought, when I talk to others in business, I realize that they are not really any better than I am at hiring and firing even if their organization is much larger than mine. Hiring is a skill that requires mastery, and mastery takes a lot of hard work, thought and refinement. I’m having growing pains slowly moving up the food chain, but I think I’ll make it. I’m not sure how long it will take until I’m comfortable doing a higher percentage of management rather than grunt work. Maybe I will be a full fledged manager in a year. When you work for yourself there are no promotions. You do what is necessary for the company to run, so this promotion is one that evolves or doesn’t evolve. We’ll see what happens!

If you are having similar growing pains growing your outsourcing company, you are not alone. Learn to master the art of delegation to the point of it being a science!

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Tags on Google+ cannot be used the way they are on Twitter

September 4, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Leave a comment

Twitter and Google+ are both fun, but can’t really be used the same way. Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters while Google is more flexible. Google+ will let you write posts much longer than 140 characters, but will only show the first 400 or so characters before you need to click the “see more” link. I think Google’s attitude about letting you post longer posts adds a lot of flexibility to their social media venue. If only they had the volume of active users that Twitter does (technically they have more active users that Twitter, but it seems like they only have 10% if you look at active members of groups or people who post regularly).

Google+ rewards you more for the words at the top of your post.
This is actually very smart. I give Google points of intelligence. I learned that in Google+’s search results they reward you more for words closer to the beginning of the post. So, if you want to stress one or more particular tags, put them in the first line. I noticed that words near the bottom of my opening paragraph did help me show up on search results, but several notches down — to the point where you needed to scroll a bit to see them. I’m not sure if the necessity to scroll hurts you a lot or a little, but it could hurt you a lot, so keep this in mind!

Google+ tags don’t do much good unless…
If you tag a post with a keyword that doesn’t appear in your verbiage, you might not show up at all on keyword searches. If you have a popular account with many followers, or you pick a very unpopular tag, you might still show up. But, for the rest of us, you need to make sure your keyword shows up in your text, no matter how awkward it is to fit it in there.

Twitter just lets you tag and show up
Twitter lets you write about anything, and put any tag you like. If someone retweets you, especially if it is a retweet from that particular keyword’s tag feed, then you might show up better under that tag. But, the flexibility is much greater with tags on Twitter even though you are limited to very few characters.

What really matters in the end?
I’ve retweeted popular content on Google+ with really mainstream keywords. However, these prominent retweets didn’t get any plusses despite the fact that they were from excellent sources. I retweeted content from Harvard Business Review and many of the prominent players in the social media arena. It seems that proper tagging on Google+ might get you a little bit of popularity, if that. What seems to matter is having people who come regularly to your page, and share your content. What also matters is having high quality original content that people really like.

I gasp as see my Twitter clicks go from 2 a month to 42

September 4, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter is a very simple, yet complicated social media platform. It is easy to tweet. Any idiot can tweet, but the problem is that most of the people who do tweet — are idiots. I looked at my analytics for previous months and years on Twitter. As I see my evolution unfold, I am painfully reminded of how I used to not have a clue of how to effectively use Twitter. Effective use of Twitter is like an art form. You get gradually better at it over time, but nothing happens all of a sudden.

Many novices are fooled by the top line number. They think that having lots of followers is a good thing. More followers is not bad, but it doesn’t translate into any SEO realities either. The key in Twitter is to have good tweets going to good content that your audience likes! Our worst several months we were getting only about two clicks a month. After I started really taking Twitter more seriously and spending more time creating more artful tweets, my click rate went up a bit. But, after I hired a professional comedy writer, that is where I saw the real results. We peaked at 42 clicks a month and had over a dozen different people retweet us.

I used to count straight retweets, but now I am more interested in how many different people retweet us. I retweet myself from my various accounts, but that means very little to me, and even less to you. I take pride when strangers retweet my content at least once a month. If the same guy keeps retweeting me, but nobody else does, then I lose interest.

Honestly, my twitter analytics for the outsourcing site are very poor. I often question whether it is worth it to even continue with such small numbers. I want hundreds of clicks and hundreds of retweets, not a dozen new people retweeting me on a good month. My Notary Twitter on the other hand is getting thousands of clicks using the PPC program. What works for one account doesn’t necessarily work for the other. So, I’m going to have to strategize here about what to do.

My gut feeling is that it makes more sense to create more content and let Google do the work rather than slaving away trying to create great Tweets and wondering why the retweet rate is so low!

Tweets:
(1) Effective use of Twitter is like an art form. You get gradually better at it over time.
(2) The key in Twitter is to have good tweets going to good content that your audience likes!

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How to find call center clients — being pushy

September 4, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Finding call center clients could be easy or hard, but having good technique is what you should be worried about at this point. You can contact larger companies and see if they need extra call center resources. Or, you can market yourself on the web and in directories and wait for the calls to come in. The main point is to attract the people you come into contact with. Many companies have not mastered this point.

Many call centers lack basic phone skills when you call them. They often don’t even answer their own phone, and many don’t even answer professionally. Often times, you can not get someone trained in sales to help you without really pulling teeth. So, master your phone skills before going on to the next step.

Don’t be pushy
Many businesses that do outsourcing of any type can be pushy about contracts and terms. If you are a smaller company trying to make it in the big world, you will feel tempted to copy what bigger companies do. This is a mistake. Don’t copy big companies. Big companies might have rigid contracts, formal looking offices, formal suits, receptionists, etc. You don’t need any of this. Contracts are restrictive and scare people away. Sure, you need to protect yourself from not getting paid. However, trying lock in a complete stranger to a contract will scare them away. Your phone is NOT ringing off the hook. So, if your phone does ring with a prospective client, your strategy should be to NOT scare them away no matter what. Lure them in by being nice, helpful and flexible.

The 70% rule
When I go shopping for companies, I have to turn down 70% of them because they have rigid terms and because they try to push me into a contract. Do you want to lose 70% of prospective clients? Most companies behave as if they don’t care if they get new clients — those companies get far fewer than they could if they changed their attitude. Does your company have this “Don’t care” attitude?

The long run
If you care about the long run of your business, you will quickly realize that catching a new client can turn into a snowball effect. That new client will stay with you for years if they like you. They can also give you more business volume if they like you. Additionally, they can tell their rich friends how great you are — if they like you. However, if you alienate your prospects at the point of sale — they will not try you out — and they will never know if they like you — because you were too pushy. So, DON’T BE PUSHY. Learn your lesson now.