PROFIT CONCIERGE  SNACK N LEARN PODCAST GUEST RICHARD BLANK COSTA RICAS CALL CENTER
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Snack 'N Learn podcast. The Profit 
Concierge with Richard Blank. A Call 
Center Guru
Pam Prior, the Entrepreneur's CFO Quarterback; Radio Host; CEO of Priorities 
Group, Inc.; and #1 Bestselling Author of "Your First CFO: The Accounting Cure 
for Small Business Owners"
Pam Prior, Keynote Speaker, 
Host of the "Cash Flow" 
Podcast
Awesome Podcast GUEST (Serving YOUR 
audience) Founder, Profit Concierge® Financial 
Services
THE VIP Bookkeeping🧾 and FInancial Services Solution for 
Entrepreneurs
#1 Author of "Your First CFO: The Accounting Cure for Small Business 
Owners" CEO of Priorities Group, Inc.
And - just for fun - a 30-year finance career in Fortune 50 and Private 
Equity
prior (get it?) to all this fun stuff
Proud Mom, Wife, Friend, Entrepreneur, and
Dog Owner (3 of 'em) living near 
Philadelphia, PA A brilliant, down to earth, 
finance wrangler
who guides you on the path to confident control of your money mindset and 
business cash flow. Pam knows what you need to understand, and she cuts out the 
rest. You don’t need to BE a bookkeeper (though you might need to hire one! We’ll 
talk); you need to understand a specific set of numbers and how they shape your 
business. She meets you where you are and takes you where you want to go with 
no unnecessary, complicated terminology or lingo.
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he 
was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the 
larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style 
backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and 
trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers.
Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and 
antique
Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC 
culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center 
since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from 
the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the 
University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High 
School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into 
the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is 
very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for 
students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level.
Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource 
company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has 
been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call 
center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound 
telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized 
international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies.
We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or 
business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we 
would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin 
beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore 
tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see 
for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your 
growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry.
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-camp
aigns/
#RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing 
#BPO #Sales
#Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO 
#smallbusinesschronicles #snacknlearn
snack n learn,, Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, 
BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, 
Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, 
education, trainer,
thank you for watching snack and 
learn hosted by pam pryor
[Music]
everybody welcome to tuesday and 
for our very first snack and learn
with somebody who is living in 
costa rica and i cannot wait to 
introduce you to richard blank
there is so much i want to cover 
with him that i don't know how 
we're going to compress it into half 
an hour so i've
had to kind of hand pick my topics 
but let me give you a little 
background and just to introduce 
richard and then i'm going to let 
him uh give us a little bit
of his own perspective on things as 
well but
richard's journey is actually in the
call center space and it's had a 
ton of twists and turns in it so
the long and short of is it is that 
when he after a bunch of 
academic work he returned when 
he was 27 years old to costa rica 
to train some employees for one 
of the really large call centers in 
san jose and he's
effectively never come back i'm 
sure i'm overstating it but that's 
sort of the
feel for it when you meet him 
you're going to get to know why 
this is really really interesting 
he's the chief executive officer 
for costa rica's call center and 
he's been that since 2008 he's 
got all sorts of commendations
all sorts of educational background 
that would just blow your mind
and
the things that i want to really hit 
him up about have nothing to do 
with academics and degrees 
because he's fascinating to talk to 
i want to talk to him today about 
costa rica itself i want to talk to 
him about gamification
how to get employee employees 
engaged in your company
and then micro expressions i love 
the idea of phonetic micro 
expression reading and this man 
comes to the table with some stuff 
he's really learned and put together 
around that so without any
more hoopla richard welcome to 
snack and learn how are you
pam i'm so happy to be here today 
cannot wait to have a few snacks
learn a few things then share some 
ideas with you and your amazing 
audience is
that a candy machine speaking of 
snacks that i see over your shoulder 
there absolutely that's the private 
vip
machine in my office there's 
tons of candy on the floor but 
now here's all you can eat pam
well unfortunately i've got to 
wait till
my knee recovery everybody 
knows why i'm

showing up in my lounge chair these 
days and it's just because i'm still 
working
on the knee recovery but i would uh 
take all the candy in the world if i 
were actually getting a lot more 
motion these days
so give us a little you know your 
perspective on that background and 
how it's brought you particularly to
call center 
work 
gamification
really understanding company 
culture and how to make it work well
and micro expression reading
so much to go over and assure 
you no we'll definitely get it done
originally from northeast 
philadelphia and so when i 
graduated abington high school in 
91 instead of going to law and 
medicine and ivy league i chose to 
go to
the university of arizona and 
double down on my favorite class 
which was recess second favorite 
spanish so uh at
arizona i was a spanish 
communication major i interned for 
telemundo during college sold 
beer for the importers of corona 
postgrad
nice 27 i had a one in a 
million opportunity pam to 
come
work at my friend's call 
center for just
a couple months in costa rica and 
teach english well
that wasn't me for four and i 
learned
the business from the inside and 
out and the next thing you know a 
couple years later i started my own 
call center
wow and bait is it based in costa 
rica or is that just one of your 
branches oh i wish i had multiple 
branches now we just got one 
300 seat capacity call center here
in costa rica and i tell you what 
entering the business not as a c-
level executive but with the 
proletariat i was able to break 
bread with them and sit next to 
them in cubicles and really get a 
chance to see what the business 
is
like from the inside and out
and i learned that empathy and 
dignity go a long way especially 
in this industry to reduce attrition 
and to get people to really invest 
in it more of a career than just a 
transitional job probably
if they are applying it to their 
calls with their success rates 
as well
of course but there's 
structure to it
you just can't have a rogue agent 
going out there people do have 
experience and in call centers we 
have a quality
control department so we gauge 
you on
kpis and metrics you have scripts 
and rebuttals and there's also ways 
to train in regards to delivery and 
semantics word choice but if you 
can master the art of speech 
which you have them then 
obviously relationships are much 
better you can convert phone calls 
retain clients
and just do it your stuff is your 
stuff mostly cold outbound 
calling is that or is it following up 
on collections or is
it for entrepreneurs looking for you 
know call sales teams that kind of 
thing what do you focus on we 
have a lot of
entrepreneurs in the group who i'm 
sure got their ears perked up 
wondering
and for your audience we handle 
everything from outbound calls for 
sales appointment setting legion
we also do inbound customer 
support and non-voice back office 
support my suggestion for your 
audience
is to not only communicate
just with omni channel non-voice 
support where if you're just doing 
chats and emails it's very 
frustrating and clients don't like that 
you could lose a client
not get an upsell referral or 
potential exit interview so if you 
are capable of having this live 
interpersonal communication with 
prospective clients and existing 
clients
you have a much better business 
awesome and then you also do lead 
gen yes ma'am
the cold call to get you know 
narrow it down to do the 
conversion and all of that well i 
can get through gatekeepers 
easily there's a trick to it it's called 
positive escalation first you 
understand their protocol i'll 
mention their name
and before being transferred to you 
pam i will definitely let that 
individual
know how amazing they were and 
when i do get transit i'll be mentioning 
it pam
i'll mention your associates verbally
and i'll also do it in writing and 
so if you see if i call your 
company back
people will remember me and add 
to my momentum or it shows good 
faith prior to any sort of contracts
i love this so let me ask you a 
question do you also do things like 
for example what we do here is a 
lot of calling to get on podcasts
okay
so if we had a list or maybe we don't 
have lists maybe you have a list of 
100 podcasts does your call center 
do that kind of work as well we 
would be capable of making those 
phone calls absolutely it's not just 
sales it's also kind of pr
work for people getting them that 
getting them into a podcast 
helping write the scripts for the 
people to make those calls that 
kind of thing sure we can custom 
make any sort of campaign we're 
very versatile the agents that we 
have here i you know we're very 
selective of the campaigns that 
come in it's a strict catholic 
country so the agents it is a 
seller's market they
would choose to make those calls 
and feel comfortable with it but 
yeah let's say you never even 
made those calls before i'm very 
capable
of writing scripts and doing 
rebuttals
and and working on email 
templates and voicemail templates
that's awesome because a lot of 
people don't know like myself 
included i don't know how to 
approach a podcast person and 
build the relationship the right way
i mean i do know how to do it the 
long and slow way and i can 
maybe work on
five at a time like that listen to 
their podcast add value to 
them
um get to know them a little bit 
and then ultimately get an 
invitation to be on the podcast 
that's the tried and true way and 
we're very focused on relationship 
building certainly in our company 
and in this group that we're 
talking to now
but is there a way to scale 
that is impossible
as one person
so it could be something that 
could be outsourced to a group 
like yours
to yours specifically to help
kind of scale that a lot of it 
depends on on list eyes you 
could start off with an email blast 
and then just work with people 
that write you back
um i personally believe
that you making the calls pam 
will be much more effective than 
individuals depending on the 
size
before about not having that sort of 
experience to convert that call i'd say 
quite the contrary pam you're an 
amazing person you're very 
personable you know how to speak 
with people and show active listening
the fact that you haven't been 
making cold calls for 20 years 
means that you don't have bad 
habits that if you ask me to work 
with a call center we could mold 
you and make certain suggestions 
gotcha and so those are the sort of 
soft skills that would only increase
in your ability i love that because 
you're talking about a real 
partnership with whoever hires 
you
to utilize the call center where 
it makes sense but train up the 
client where it makes sense as 
well even if that training 
might just be self-confidence 
or
you know brushing off dusty skills 
kind of thing and a lot of it's 
dedicated practice there are certain 
things we could suggest for you to 
practice on your own time but i 
don't know ma'am i i think 
someone like yourself just going 
off the bat and being raw and just 
showing your own pure essence of 
what you have i think it would be 
received
favorably because most people do 
canned speeches they grind through 
the calls
and they lost a certain oh gotcha 
gotcha was the only player that got 
them in
it's not i really listen to your 
podcast it's i listen to your 
podcast and they
don't they barely remember 
the name of
the podcast they listen to as 
opposed to the work we actually do 
yeah it happens that's interesting 
and then
but for somebody who say is 
building a membership
and they have a lead funnel in 
facebook ads but they're looking 
for another way to cultivate leads
this would be something you could 
help them with like at what point 
does a client come to you and say
i could use help with this or what 
point would it be really beneficial 
for them to come to you and say
hey i've got this situation how 
can you
help me
depends on if they're a 
specialist or if there's other 
areas of their
business they'd like to focus on 
let me give you an example from 
even myself and growing my 
business
i needed specialists for the i.t
department since i'm in a 
foreign country i do need to 
understand the labor law so i 
had to get an attorney and a 
human resources director
and also an accountant could i 
do all these things potentially
but there's only so many hats you 
can wear and there's only so much 
time that you have and so i i think 
if it makes sense for somebody to 
have someone prospect calls for 
them set up appointments to call 
back maybe a hot lead transfer or 
just being able to receive those 
inbound calls for them while 
they're on other calls or on other
appointments that would make 
perfect sense to scale that way 
and as long as you're giving us all 
the resources
and that you have a very clean 
company culture
that is enthusiastic
because there's a lot of times 
people might
i don't know might have more of an 
aggressive tone and might think 
that something that could work in 
manhattan or in chicago or 
philadelphia could be
the same sort of vocabulary in 
momentum
north carolina
exactly and so we just have to make 
sure that certain company cultures 
are able
to mesh and then
we're following all the labor 
laws i love that that that's 
fantastic
because one of the things i 
think that
people
comes to mind when you think call 
center is and this is what i really 
want to
dive in with too with you because i 
love it is that it's unhappy robots 
behind
the 
phone 
who
are just
following a script and watching 
the clock to get out of there well 
you've created something 
completely different than that
and like you were telling me you've 
got game rooms and a cafe that the 
cafeteria is done in a 50s diner style 
and you
work with and train and provide 
your employees with resources 
and
one of the things i always felt was 
done wrong in corporate and i 
always talked about is that it was 
profits first
people second
and it doesn't work that way 
you you don't
build a sustainable long-term 
culture that way you you build a
quarterly 
responsive soon 
to die
goliath that 
way okay and
but the way that you really build 
a business is you know that 
people first means profits are 
also first because
they come right along with it tell me 
a little bit about what you do to 
engage your your workforce there 
and really besides the fact that you 
you've been in it and they know 
that you know what they do
what else do you do to really 
make this a different standout call 
center
well i always think of the chuck e
cheese philosophy if nobody shows 
up for your birthday then you have 
no friends and so you could try to put 
as much profits as you want in front 
of
something but if nobody shows up 
you're not making any money
so
this industry you're mentioning 
certain things you might see on 
tv
and wolf of wall street glengarry 
boiler room prime gig those those 
are the hardcore
boiler rooms and call centers that 
sell
stock and other real estate
but there are a lot of amazing 
people that earn a living making 
and receiving phone calls now i 
myself i thrived in this industry i 
didn't burn out i was able to build 
my own center because i realize 
that there is an art of speech
if you're just looking at a clock and 
you're grinding it why don't you go 
get another job you shouldn't force 
yourself to do something you don't 
want to do and you're also talking 
about a lost art most people are 
doing things via chat and email 
and the fact that people are still 
capable of communicating 
showing active listening
you know engaging in their 
cognitive
skills it only makes them more 
marketable and then their 
relationships outside of the call 
center
do have an influence on the work 
that they do here
and so we're just not looking at 
someone that i'm looking to churn 
and burn there there might be an 
outside influence and so i 
mentioned earlier about extending 
empathy the fact that this soldier 
and i have been in those shoes
might be off that day i'll use a little
kill pam i'll say listen you know i 
know you're better than that and 
you seem to be a little out of 
character you're not smiling as 
much as usual uh-huh as long as i 
follow the labor laws and just work 
within a certain parameter of
resetting somebody
and getting them to where they 
need to be it'll be fine but i i have 
a niche i
i got luxury here because english 
is their second language so for the 
fact that they're getting a return of 
investment there is stimulation 
there because they are speaking in 
a second
language they're not zoning out 
because of this such intense
concentration for sure time 
for the translation
these people are incredible
i can expand their vocabulary with 
a thesaurus so they can have 
similes and really work on their 
delivery
their earnings potential is 
limitless and they know that 
you're investing in them for them
and it's a payback to the company 
as an after effect
but you're investing in them for 
them yeah it's of course so real 
tell me about this cafeteria how 
did you do out of 50s cafeteria
well there's always things you 
wanted as a kid i had the space and 
so i mean
you know if you're going to philly 
you
might as well get black and 
white tile and the red and white 
booths i love it it's my coca-cola 
colors it's my it's my logo colors 
look at
this and it just needs to be fun i
always think that if you think young 
you act young and so besides my 
pinball machines and jukeboxes and 
50s cafes i i really tried to create an 
environment where people can let all 
steam recharge batteries hang out 
with me or make friends
and make it 
inviting so
they can really once again reset 
themselves before going upstairs 
and hitting the phone again i love 
that and speaking of games like 
right so in fact interestingly i 
have a
a morning process i go through and 
one of the things that i actually was
listening to this morning was 
talking about
you know
linking up things that are yucky to 
do with things that are fun to do 
and creating uh almost gamified 
experience to get those yucky 
things i'm like i
don't know maybe it's 
uh you
call friends while you're on a 
walk if you don't like walking or
you walk while you're calling 
friends if you don't like talking on 
the phone and you do like walking 
it may be the case but you pair 
those things up so that it becomes 
a little more palatable and and fun 
to your point i'm a big believer and 
all of life should be fun uh be it at
work or um you know at home and i 
know there are things that come and 
go i'm talking about the overarching
um
emotion ought to be fun and if we 
can at all manage to do that and
um
how do you gamify the works the 
work where you are how have you 
done that inside the call center
what a fantastic 
question well
first is prior to even making a 
phone call i addressed fear so i let 
them know by learning a second 
language is 10 times harder than 
anything i'm about to put them on 
so that puts that in perspective
secondly i'll give them all the 
resources so i reduce fear that 
way of the unknown
and then when they're upstairs 
there are
certain sort of metrics that we can 
follow in our quality control 
department to make sure they do 
what they have to do but for me i 
really play on the soft skills
i'm not going to do a certain game 
where we're acting the full
or we're looking to look 
unprofessional
but maybe we will keep score on how 
many times i say the name pam on 
the call and
do the name drop
did i use the military alphabet 
was there a positive escalation 
before the transferred call
and also in regards to active 
listening is there certain chances 
where i was able to confirm for 
my edification
or even use a me too technique 
if there
happened to be a dog barking in the 
background or another noise that i 
could somehow address it put it to 
bed anchor in on something in 
common grab my grip and move 
from there and so it's really more 
about just living in the now
active listening and being 
exceptionally engaged in the 
phone call because it's zigs and 
zags there's never straight lines in 
nature and so as long as you
are prepared yeah and there's no 
reason why you can't
let the client assume they're in 
control
the conversation where you're 
more just the rudder of the ship
and do you give your team things 
to literally score themselves on 
so they can see themselves 
improve at this or that like i can 
see their recordings
back they've been graded and when 
they listen to themselves they'll 
realize if
they were going too fast yep 
interrupted or cross talked or 
forgot to do the military alphabet 
or name drop and so it's really not 
me are you saying anything pam 
i'll just look at you
and do this go i know richard i 
know i did that yeah otherwise 
this is more i'll just make the 
face derrick a certain time and 
then they will the
self-improvement is from self-
analysis i
could agree with you more
i love the idea of re-listening 
to the calls
and because then you can be 
objective with it and you do pick 
up i know when i re-listen to videos 
or snack and learns or other things 
i'll pick up things
that need improvement and 
that's the only way you can do 
that is if you look at it i hate to 
use the term
self-critically because it 
sounds critical
but it's it's really self-
development or areas of
focus i try to do things
diplomatically and then i'll always 
say hey pam would you mind if i 
make a suggestion then you say 
yes richard so now i have 
permission and then instead of 
saying you should do this in order
for me to have a b c and d i did 
this
does this make sense and then you 
would say yes and then we practice 
the role
play and then you're you're good to 
go i always address myself first you 
did mention i made these calls 
before and so the best thing for me 
to do is to share
on how i was able to crack codes 
and master levels
and get to where i am today so 
it's it's humbling but then again 
it's reassuring i love that so
if somebody what is the skill set 
that somebody should carry into a 
call center job
which favors the brave that's 
number one people need dedicated 
practice
it's muscle memory they could 
be exhausted after an eight 
hour shift of
just receiving phone calls it's a 
controlled environment it might 
seem
monotonous at times you were 
mentioning the downside of the 
course
but if somebody sees the art of 
speech and is constantly looking 
to ways to improve their 
vocabulary
and do the as you say the sixth 
name
drop during a call then then you 
have really
increased your speaking skills
and if you think that call centers 
are the be all end all no not true 
as i mentioned you will be 
exceptionally marketable and if 
you can master this
sort of environment there's 
nothing else
you can't do and if you happen to 
start your own business as your 
entrepreneurs are doing
you're prepared
and you're just not writing 
checks you'll be walking the 
roads you'll be sitting with your 
agents you'll be on boarding 
them
supporting them yeah and i 
believe are the best leaders
i love that and of the group that 
comes in the door and that you 
work with it sounds like you do 
some pretty intensive training and 
culture
work with them to adapt to the 
culture of your company but still 
keep their own personal identity
the culture when i see the 
culture all i really mean is
get them interested in that 
independent growth that they can 
have in this environment while still 
you know totally embracing that 
total human that they're
bringing to the table sure we have 
two types we have those that have 
worked in the center before so my 
difference in my culture because we 
have the same equipment and the 
same sort of workflow it's the fact 
that i know your name and
that we're a small enough company 
where you can really
you know build here and i can 
delegate and promote you
and now if you've never worked at 
a call center before you're not 
coming in with any sort of bad 
habits right not a
cancer
pam you and i can mold our squire 
into a night
right so those are the sort of 
things and a lot of them if not 
most of them will say that i'm 
the only boss that
does know their name which i 
think is a shame yeah it is then 
again if they want to continue this 
sort of culture and tradition when 
they do start their own company 
maybe they will be the one percent 
that actually makes the efforts 
they'll appreciate and and it also 
goes back to something that i've
felt ever since i started in the 
mail room frankly is
you can make any job a game you can 
make any job fun um
and what i like about this is you're 
not just making it a game for a 
game sake like my game in the 
mail room was that i could put tape 
on the floor step 10 feet back from 
all those mail slots and toss letters 
and get it in the right slot
that's a game for game sake 
there's no life-growing skill i'm 
gaining there
except being able to make 
something fun you're actually 
gamifying this in a way that if 
somebody comes in here and says 
wow this is a chance to develop my
my speaking and this wouldn't just 
be for english as a second 
language i mean we can all always 
develop our speaking habits and 
our understanding of active 
listening and how to communicate
if that's the
reason i'm there the calls are 
really the tool for learning 
they're basically
practice exams over and over and 
over and over again for that 
growth
pam you could save a divorce
you could save thanksgiving 
dinner friendships
just by having these sort of skills 
yeah yeah i love i love how much 
there is to this and how you're 
doing it
um
and i have to ask okay so in 
your bio you talk about
i hope i'm getting this term right 
phonetic micro expression reading 
yes tell me about this you have got 
to share it
let me show you the picture 
first if i may can you see that
yep i can
phonetic micro expression reading 
and then we've got pitch and rate
micro expression reading is visual 
when you study body language and 
haptics and self and object adapters 
there's a lot
of ways you can gauge 
someone's reactions but
in my 
environment 
you
lose the luxury of sight yes
genetic micro expression reading 
is purely sound oriented now i do 
believe that individuals give out 
tell signs in conversations they're 
not even paying attention to it it's 
almost like lazy speech
phonetics is broken down quickly 
into tone rate pitch and duration in 
my opinion a tone should be 
consistent it should be confident 
and empathetic you and i are 
focusing on the rate of speech and 
the pitch the speaking level i need 
to match that so there's a mirror 
imaging technique why
so i can see how fast or how loud 
you go every 30 seconds to two 
minutes to see if there's a spike in 
her dip that's you should want to 
ask a tie down or a pin down 
question but that could still be 
manipulated so i believe that an
answering speed is something that 
people cannot control subconsciously 
and so if they're inconsistent there 
that's
usually when you need to follow up 
with a certain question
this is happening on first first-time 
phone calls you are reading these 
individuals and so a lot of the 
times people will be concerned on 
they didn't convert the call get an 
appointment or even
make that sort of connection well 
you left a door open and besides 
asking your questions getting the 
answers there are as i mentioned 
before certain tell signs that people 
will give you
because you've had calls before 
where you've called into a 
customer service
department very relaxed in the 
beginning screaming at the end or 
screaming guilty it happens like in a 
boxing match so don't don't claim 
that the first 30
seconds of pam is the same as the 
five minute in
and so as long as you can and 
that's
what that's what expression 
reading is you need to have a 
consistent variable to see 
inconsistencies i chose 30 seconds 
to two minutes of time which is the 
average attention span and i also 
break it down into introductions 
bodies and conclusions for that 
period of time because that's 
usually how a conversation flows 
and once you see it you can't 
unsee it after three weeks it 
becomes habit it is
magic to me it's not that 
complicated because the fact 
that you are still capable of 
doing your job listening working 
with people but still in the
back of your mind doing that xy 
charges
to see how
pam is reacting is it a positive or 
negative reinforcement yep and so 
if you can't do it on a call then why 
don't you just study
uh speech in movies
right radio and you just start just 
only analyzing that in fact if you 
want to make it even better do it in 
a language you don't understand 
do it in german do it in french don't 
do it in english we probably do do 
it in languages we don't 
understand without really knowing 
it like you can watch a 
conversation in a language you 
don't understand and get an idea 
very quickly of
what type of conversation it is 
and who's escalating who's
calm who you so i hear what that 
just really made a light bulb go off 
for me sure and it's good practice 
it's it's something that you're 
capable of doing while you're 
working and i also believe in 
luxury of time there is impulse 
control somebody allows you
a moment to sleep on it take a walk 
write a draft maybe send it 
tomorrow you might readjust 
yourself not send the draft say pam 
i apologize for my tone yesterday 
kind of thing
and there's ways in which to reset 
yourself so i think you should be 
using time
as your advantage because
pam today could be different 
tomorrow right and these are the 
sort of things you must take into 
consideration for long-term 
relationships yeah that's actually 
a really interesting i'm going to 
interject with a little story right
now because we just actually had a 
team meeting
and
like you said 30 second pam's not
five-minute pam's not the same 
am you know same with richard 
you're not the richard half an hour 
ago that that
you're on the call but you kind 
of are the same person inside
but we just had this meeting we're 
having a great team meeting and 
all of a sudden it hit me that our
drive was unorganized like where 
we keep
all of our our files
and i just basically said this needs 
to
be fixed this needs to be a 
priority and be done in a month
and like
i just shifted in that moment in 
my
whole temper my whole delivery my 
whole everything from my normal 
kind of bubbly self because a trigger 
had been hit we couldn't find a file to 
work on together
so we wasted like five or ten minutes
trying to find it and um so i hear 
what you're saying it's like so 
you you'll take a 30 to two 
minute increment
analyze where the ups and downs 
are in rate and pitch of speech
loud soft
fast and slow usually people are in 
quadrant one like for an example if 
you're going to gauge me gauge me 
on 8 in speed and 8 in sound that's 
been consistent for the last 25 
minutes if by chance i go lower 
slower go to second third or fourth 
quadrant
that's a major red flag that's the 
times when you need clarification 
edification or potentially the 
person could be
facetious with you and you might 
need to ensure that you're getting 
the right answer it's
something that doesn't happen 
overnight
and you were asking me before 
about a burnout board watching 
the clock well yeah
that happens so what could i do
in this environment besides doing 
my job well i'm speaking to 150 
people a day besides converting 
calls and being the best i could be is 
there anything else i could do on 
this yeah drop your name a couple 
more times use that military
alphabet ask a follow-up 
question in regard to your dog 
barking and master this micro 
expression reading
because my time was on it's 
almost like mentalism
you know when to interject you know 
when to ask open-ended questions 
and allow you to answer for me and 
so
not that i've been manipulating 
conversations but if you look at 
my metrics my talk time is twice 
as much i'm making half the 
amount of calls today because 
i'm speaking to more people
and my numbers are through the 
roof because i'm closing more deals 
mm-hmm what am i doing differently
pam and i are having the best 
phone calls ever that's what i'm 
doing so that's yeah
myself and somebody else is 
just grinding those calls
i absolutely love love love love 
love that and and folks i want you 
whether you're watching this live 
or on the replay i want you to 
circle back to this and play this 
section over again here at 20 
started we started about 25 
minutes in and i'll mark that in the 
comments but this concept of of 
listening in a
way that's not just everything 
you've always heard about active 
listening and you know repeating 
things back and making sure you 
understand this is a very unique
and thank you richard for sharing 
it with us you know i'm guessing 
you kind of developed this
thought process on the the two 
axis
grap
h 
and
think about next time you're in 
conversation with somebody in 
the background just have a little 
picture of that down on your 
paper
take a 30 second or a 2 minute 
time frame probably closer to a 
minute and a half or two minutes 
i'm guessing the cycle is
could be as quick as 30 seconds up 
to 2 minutes i always i always look 
for
that's what i learned in college 
when we were doing focus group 
studies in my communication 
classes you look for consistent 
variables you need to put it into 
categories and subcategories so for 
me it was almost the language that 
i knew in college i just applied it
towards phonetics and then once 
again phonetics was as simple as 
tone rate pitch duration
the tone you don't want to match 
it because if someone's angry but 
then again i saw the rate and the 
pitch and then the duration was 
the real special sauce the the real 
tell sign the answering speed 
which is the funniest
thing because phonetics is sound 
and i'm saying hey pam the greatest 
tell sound you have is the silence
that's what makes your 
genius i
love it
and when you say duration just to 
make sure we're all clear on it
you mean how long they
wait before they say something 
how quickly it takes them to 
answer you yes
how long it takes to answer that's 
why the cops usually ask the third 
or fourth tough question during the 
interrogations you'll see things 
change immediately you can 
manipulate pam your tone your rate 
and your pitch it's almost impossible
for you to go 10 for 10 in regards to
your answering speed well you'd 
probably drive somebody crazy if 
you did wouldn't you don't we need 
the variety well then
i think you're a genius
if you're capable of controlling your 
subconscious like that because you 
can or a genius or a um
what do they call them psychopath 
or
look at somebody that that so she 
has things that everything is great 
but once they put in special hot 
sauce they can't help but spit it 
out sweat and need to drink five 
gallons of water so your body 
physiologically
can't only handle things so 
much yeah and so as i say 
before the tell sound is the 
pure it's it's it's the id
of the person not the lower the 
persona which is the cone rate and 
pitch
i love that wow you've done some 
amazing thinking on this i love it do 
you speak
on the road about these topics 
at all are you focused
totally on your call center
just on the call center at the 
moment when i'm doing these 
podcasts i just love sharing ideas 
with my friends and putting in 
your sales
i loved your show so it you know
inspired me enough to write you and 
here we are today and i'm so glad 
we're in each other's circles because 
this has
been one of the most 
fascinating conversations 
and
i've like written down a ton of 
notes i'm going to be going to 
play around with them as well 
because i find everything about 
communication and all of this 
and and just we hit on so many 
so many
points the communication and and 
making it effective creating a culture 
where
people really want to work feel 
value learn and develop and if the 
next thing they do is go off and be 
an entrepreneur that's wonderful 
for everybody
um
and then
gamification promised me this 
though just like fire
it could be used for warmth and 
health and can also burn
yep when your audience when
they master these skills they're 
going to become a lot more lucid 
yeah when speaking with people
and so i would appreciate if 
they use this sort of delicate 
skill to not embarrass 
somebody
publicly yeah put them down 
because you are going to be 
crystal clear on what's 
happening use your diplomacy
and strategy by asking 
for clarification
and edification
during those periods of time i love 
that and the thing i love about this 
group and why i do this here and 
share these kind of skills is that 
we screen it very carefully for that 
very reason and it's
it's folks who want to do things
the right way it's folks who 
understand and agree with our 
concepts about people not only 
first but people is profit is a 
derivative of people not the other 
way around kind of thing and and 
uh
looking to build things on 
relationships and in a meaningful 
yet also scalable way and i think 
you've kind of given us the best 
best of both of those well folks 
listen if you're
in your business are ready to start 
getting some help on and i'm 
going to list a few and then you 
can tell me what i'm missing but 
lead generation call conversion
what else would they call you for if
they need some umph and muscle 
behind their their business practices
remember sales appointment setting 
lead
generation customer support back 
office support there you go much 
longer and better list than i could 
do it's really
your client it's really potentially 
a client journey from lead all the 
way through support once 
they're in your business working 
and i have a very strong feeling 
that calls you get from this call 
center have a unique
impact on people it's different than 
the ones that i'm getting every five 
seconds because i work with so 
many clients on their financing um 
saying you know hey we have 
three million dollars for you at four 
percent over ten years
you know those those kind of 
calls it sounds to me like
there's a relationship building 
from the
minute i pick up the phone
it can be it depends on the vertical 
we're very selective of what comes 
in here but i promise pam we'll 
never call you at dinner you're not 
one of those that's okay i never 
answer them anyway that's why i 
have i let him go to voicemail but 
perfect
all right great well this has been 
wonderful i can't thank you enough 
for spending some time with us in 
the group i know folks might have 
questions if
they do i will just circle back with 
you and get answers for them um 
i've gotten a ton out of this i can't 
wait kind of
for my next phone call my next 
conversation to really start 
trying to dial in the um
the pitch and rate
concept here it's really sounds 
interesting to me and i'm i'll 
practice on my family so i'll tell 
them i'm practicing it
then it won't look obvious when 
i'm on call but hang on just a 
second i need to draw something 
on my graph
so thank you so much this has been 
a blast had a wonderful time pam 
thank you awesome folks have a 
great rest of your tuesday we'll be 
back with you i believe this thursday 
again and uh you know where to find 
us drop your questions
drop your comments that's my dog 
signing off for us have a great 
afternoon
https://youtu.be/O6ayksYkwKM?si=4ia
ndqsMp04DlGHT