The Famous Buffer-Boomerang Technique with Richard Blank of Costa Rica's Call Center

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and author of the Conscious Design book. And I'm here with Richard, the founder of Costa Rica's Call Center. And we're going to talk about probably a lot of things. But one of the topics is he's built a multicultural business, which has a lot of intricacies to something like that, which we will dive into some. Great to have you on the show.

It's great to be here, Ian. I really appreciate your time. And once again, I, I love the work that you do. Your podcasts are very entertaining. I'm able to sit through them and you inspired me enough to reach out to you. So I think Conscious Design, we're going to be going over so many things today to enrich the lives of your amazing audience.

Amazing. Well, it's great to hear. It's always nice when people actually listen to what what you're putting out there.

At least you got one.

So it's good. One one very happy listener is better than none, or a bunch of unhappy ones.

So I'd say that's I'm about to introduce you to a huge audience in Central America. Costa Rica cannot wait to meet Ian. So once this podcast goes live, don't kid yourself when you're Big fans are gonna be writing you and asking you questions.

Fantastic, I look forward to that. Well, kick this off. I'd love for you to start with, you know, you didn't grow up in Costa Rica, you're from Philly. So we talked a little bit about how you even prepared to make that move. I'd love for you to go into that story a little bit and how you approached moving and, and now staying there for quite a while.

It's one of my favorite questions and has so many steps to it, but I, I can make it a nice Cliff Note version for you. When I was in Northeast Philadelphia at Abington High School, I knew that my favorite class was in Spanish. And unlike some of my friends that had their opinions given to them and their destiny pre-decided for their careers— law, medicine, engineering, architecture, Ivy League— maybe I was a dreamer.

Yeah.

Maybe I was the black sheep. So I decided to double down on Spanish and communication at the University of Arizona. Like yourself, Ian, I studied public speaking, rhetoric, and nonverbal communication. And when I was 27 years old, a very, very good friend of mine gave me an opportunity to come down for 2 months and work at his call center and just do some training. And once in a while, Ian, there will be a million and one opportunity that crosses your path. I knew I needed to take it.

Yeah.

And when I was here, first and foremost, Central America is beautiful. It is paradise. But when I walked into a call center environment, I was seeing these incredibly intelligent bilingual agents that were converting calls and conversing and getting positive escalations. And I don't know about you, but I shed a skin that day. I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I gravitated towards it.

Mm-hmm.

I put my stuff in storage in Arizona and disappointed a few people because if you can get past your parents' guilt, Ian, you can live anywhere in the world and decided to invest the last 22 years in Costa Rica, and it's just been an incredible time so far.

Amazing. Well, it sounds like that decision has paid off, has been the right one, and you've been able to enjoy it for so long, which is amazing. It's great to have one of those opportunities, take it and like it, and be able to turn it into something. My friend, I was prepared for this.

I mastered Spanish, and I knew that if I came here knowing their language, it was an excellent first impression and that I'd be embraced. So instead of not saying it's a bad thing, but there are some people here on tours and vacation or retired that didn't bother to learn the language or the customs or the culture, and they might be expecting things to be like back home. But mind you this, the things that we might hold dear and value in the United States sometimes don't have value here. The most important thing is your essence. And if people can come to that in that sort of thing that you and I do, there's no reason why we can't make friends everywhere in the world.

Right. Well, it's so important. And we run teams all across the world. We have people in Europe, we have people in Philippines, we work with people in Mexico, India, China. It's so important to be aware of the cultural impact that you are having and what it means. Like you said, like just the way you said, right? We in the US, I live in LA right now, so I'm deeply inside the US culture.

Yeah.

There are certain things that are very valuable, but that doesn't mean as soon as you cross the border, it's still valuable. So it's very important to understand that. When you start working with another culture. And, and you seem to have been doing a really great job with that. You've built your own call center, which requires multilingual people working in one culture interfacing almost all the time with another culture, and you're really successful at it. So what has been—

I'd like to share a secret with you, and that could be used across the board with all the different offices that you work with. It's, it's the one rule, Ian, It's making sure that everyone that works with you has their dignity, that they're not expendable or treated like a robot or a number. And so I've been able to reduce my attrition. I know I'm a guest in this country, and I take that seriously.

Yeah.

So when people come in here, I make sure that they know that they'll be properly trained, given all the resources. But we've created a gamification culture. I'll give you a quick example. Let's say you're supposed to be here at 7:00 AM Monday morning for your first account and training. Your class doesn't start until 7:30. Your first class is recess. For the first half an hour, you'll be playing pinball with your boss, with the other coworkers you'll be starting to work with. And maybe you can have some fun and relax when you first come to the company. So when you go into your classroom the first day, you already have 5 friends, you've enjoyed yourself, and you've reduced that sort of barrier. So instead of just absorbing, maybe you can start contributing. And so we—

Right.

Really, really strong in regards to our company culture. And a lot of it has to do with that happy medium, the game room and the pinball machine.

Right. Well, that, that's a great idea. I think more people should do that because it— I really would also, if that was your— I think it'd be great if we did that in the US. That would be an amazing room for it.

Takes a lot of room to have a game room.

Yeah, yeah, it does. But it's, but it's so— it would— I would imagine that the people that start there, because you're not starting right off and, oh, here's Work super hardcore, which is, you know, the American way of— we're always, always doing that. But you're able to like—

During the day. So instead of going outside for a cigarette, being by yourself on your phone for Instagram, or just sitting by yourself, this area here enables people from other departments to meet one another. Imagine letting off steam, recharging batteries, I've seen people fall in love by the Pac-Man machine, so I know that it happens. But Ian, instead of being in my office and me grilling you about a phone call, why can't you and I go downstairs for that training period, and over a game of pinball, we can talk either about your call or kind of just give you positive reinforcement just to help you balance again? So I'm getting a ton of mileage out of my own personal hobby and my own passion. But I, I do realize that this is something that has been able to enable us to make such good friendships here at the company. It's very important.

Well, and you mentioned, you know, the attrition, right? Most people think of a call center, very high turnover, right? They, they equate it to, you know, something like an entry level at a Walmart or something where it's just turnover is not, not good. But that's not the case with you. And it sounds— it seems like there's a lot of factors that go into it, but I'm curious, like, what are your top things that you have figured out that you've been able to turn something that could be a very high turnover? And yeah, you have a culture where people stay. They actually— they don't, they don't quit after 6 months to go find whatever the next slightly better thing is.

I think I'll be able to clarify this for you, and I do appreciate the compliment there, but since we're friends, I kind of have to show you what's in the kitchen. I have more of a natural than a forced attrition. Since Amazon is here and other large centers, and this is a big hub for scalability and BPO, business process outsourcing, we compete. So besides just matching your base salary and your benefits, I will lose people Because of the distance from their home to the office if they're not working from home. Maybe their boyfriend or girlfriend are working there. The schedule could be better for them in regards to their school. But Ian, there's nobody that's going to say that they quit this job because you or I berated them on the floor, embarrassed them, or did not prepare them. That's number one. Number 2, when people come in here, there are options. So it's more of a seller's market I'm extremely selective of the campaigns that come in. It's not that I can't fulfill the need of the client. I got to ensure to fulfill the need of the agent. Once again, this is a strict Catholic country. They need to go home and tell their parents what they do for a living. So if I can offer them a stable job that will not compromise their ethics, values, and morals, that will reduce their sort of stress, burnout, or second-guessing of what they're doing for a living. So it's delicate and complicated, but also very easy At the same time, if you take all those factors into consideration.

Right. Well, that— and that's such a good point. Like, you're— when you look at it from a term of, you know, here's, here's my agents, right? Here's my team. Here's what they would actually like to do, right? Here's, here's, you know, their morals and, and ethics and what they, they believe. And if you just say yes to anybody that knocks on the door, you're gonna, you're gonna end up with people quitting because they're gonna be like, well, I don't really want to sell that. That's not— I don't want to support that product. It's not a good fit. So that's, that's like another layer that I think most— I haven't heard many people talk about something like that, of thinking about who you even bring on as a client, as a company. To make sure they really match the values.

But this is how we were raised. We were raised to be selective. We were raised to care about our own reputations and personalities. And there's a certain sort of spirituality that you have as well. You've got to make sure that you can live with yourself with earning a living. Now, every person can make their decisions. We all start off at the same way with our choices. I could have grown a lot larger, but I decided to do it in the tortoise compared to the hare, slow and steady. In fact, growing this business, a lot of people don't see the dedicated practice that you and I, Ian, do when we're off the air, the sort of writings that we do, and the work that we do to prepare ourselves for this. And later on in your show, I'm going to walk you through how I was able to do this just in a cash business where I didn't take out loans. I didn't take out mortgages. It took me 14 years to build this 300-seat call center. But I did it well. I mean, initially, I was at my friend's center for multiple years. I was there for 4 years. And I loved it. But then I'm going to— I'll be forthright with you, Ian. I wasn't this hotshot teenager that made millions or this genius in his 20s that cracked the code. It took me to 35 years old to have my impulse control where I could work with it and also be mature enough for contracts, for payrolls, for responsibilities. It literally took me into my mid-30s. Before that, I was on a vision quest and finding myself, but I knew my earnings potential. I realized that the call center industry could be very lucrative. It's very competitive. So instead of trying to compete with the top equipment and the bells and the whistles, Amazon will beat me on that. But the one thing, my man, they, they haven't played pinball with their people, or they don't walk the rows and know the people's names. And so by going old school business, and first renting a seat at like a glorified internet cafe, saving enough money where once I had a couple dozen agents, renting the space, buying used equipment and furniture, because you can buy that stuff very well for on the cheap. And then—

Oh yeah.

All of the those years for me to build out a building. And so my grandmother taught me that if you don't have the money, you don't spend it. And a lot of consultants recommended me to move quicker and to take these loans out.

Right.

But in my heart, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I wouldn't feel comfortable. And if it took me a couple more years to ensure that I could weather storms, that I saved enough money to go through droughts to be able to build this building, On my own. Well, that's the old school way. Might not be your way or someone else's way or whatever way, but it's enabled me to withstand multiple storms and to be able to still compete. I might not have as much money some people expected me to have or want me to have, but that doesn't matter. Putting that aside, I've accomplished so many personal goals. And I fulfilled so many of my own needs that now, my friend, I'm feeding 150 families. So people ask me what I do for a living. First I say that, and they go, okay, but how are you doing that? And then I talk about the call center. So you can kind of understand what my priorities are.

Yeah, well, I think that makes it— when you, when you stop looking at, you know, employees and numbers, right, which you mentioned before, and you think about it In terms of, well, this person you're supporting, right? You are the income for them and their family. You are, you are that pathway to, to them having a life that they want, right? If you're paying them what you should be. And really thinking about it that way is a whole different mental approach to An employee, then it becomes more like you said, it's more, well, I, I know these people. I actually know these people. They're not just number 1, number 2, number 3. I know their names. I, I'm familiar with them. They're not— they can then work better too. They're able to, you know, if, if you have a personal relationship with everyone, you're not going to have people that don't care because they're going to, well, I work for— so yeah, they're my boss, but we play pinball together. They, they know my name. Like, we work together towards a common goal, and that's not, you know, not just numbers. It's, well, we're all in this together to work towards a singular goal, which is everybody's getting to take care of themselves the way they should be able to. And now you're facilitating that instead of just a checkbox. I got a loan, I maxed out everything, and I'm— It's all cash-based.

We even take it a step further since English is their second language. The first thing that I discuss after playing pinball and coming into class, I talk about fear, which is a morbid anticipation of something that hasn't happened yet. All that investment that they did to become bilingual in English is 10 times harder than the accounts they're about to be on. And the second thing that I stress to them is a thesaurus. So besides learning the definition of a word, they'd be able to expand their vocabulary to be able to express themselves better. And besides giving them all the resources and ramping them up and doing quality assurance where I can listen to their calls, engage their KPIs, which are key performance indicators, I just don't come back and give them a grade. What I do is I discuss the soft skills that they have on the phone. So for an example, instead of telling— since we're making these calls to people's homes, Ian, and you have a very nice environment where we don't have barking dogs or children or noise in the background, but let's just say we do. A lot of agents will just say, excuse me, what did you say, Ian? I would prefer to say, for my clarification, it's— Once again, we're trying to reduce any sort of— we're Controlling the conflict management there and reducing ego defense. But let's say the dog is barking like crazy. What I would like to do is inadvertently and passive-aggressively use the Me Too technique. Tell you how much I love the dog, but not just try to shush them away. The second question I would ask you is, what's the dog's name? You would tell me it's Fluffy. So I'd say, Ian, it's cool. You know, I love dogs too. Ian realizes that Fluffy's killing the call. So when you put it away and you come back, usually we talk about the dog for a minute. And that's the time when you say to me, excuse me, what is your name again? And I would say, that's an excellent question. Glad you asked. My name once again is Richard Blank. And so we've anchored. It's not me pitching you or closing you. There's always that one moment of the call where I can loosen my tie and you and I can talk normally off script.

Right.

I think instead of being a print, you become a painting. And when people are too commercialized in any industry, not just call centers, they know their scripts so well, they're so well rehearsed, they do become commercialized and they lose this sort of rawness and spark that got them in there in the first place. Like, it's okay to, you know, you don't want to be a character, you want to be in character. And it's very important for me that people still stay very grounded. When they're doing their job, so at least they can enjoy it and find some fulfillment out of it.

Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on conscious design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brand's DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Right. Well, and it's— I imagine even from, from the agent side, right, conflict is not good. You want to, you want to enjoy the call as well. And if you hate it, you're going to quit, right? It's not going to be the experience that you talked about where you started working, you're like, I love this, this is great, this is amazing. But if you were constantly you know, yelling at people and getting yelled at, it was all conflict, then that isn't as fun. It's not enjoyable.

It could also be clarification. Let me give you another example. We're calling a company and somebody answers the phone for the first time. What you could do is instead of asking how someone is doing or directly saying, may I speak to Ian, please? You could ask how the company is doing. How's Conscious Design doing today? Of course, you're doing well and your company is doing well. you're using your anonymity as a first impression to say their company better than they do. Don't be anonymous to cold call, that's shady. But then after you've impressed this gatekeeper, they're going to then say, what is your name? That's conflict management. It's nothing wrong. It's just someone needs edification, they need clarity. And I usually like to repeat a question by saying, Ian, that's an excellent question. My name is Richard Blank. And what I could always do is reverse your potentially negative tone by asking me a question or making a statement, and showing active listening, name-dropping you and returning it in a positive way. So these are the sort of structured diplomatic soft skills that people can use on and off the phone in order to have better conversations with people. And, and I'm not done yet. Because once this individual is comfortable with me and is about to transfer the call to you, your, your assistant, I will let them know that I'm going to let you know how amazing they are. We call those positive escalations. So prior to even pitching my company or even introducing myself, Ian, I'm letting you know that your assistant is unbelievable. And I'm still anonymous at that stage too. So you feel happy, you're excited. And once again, you asked me my name because I'm your biggest fan. And we almost begin with some sort of momentum. So you're not coming in as a salesperson, you're more of an educator. And from an educated point of view, my friend, that's where our clients make a decision. And so these are the— I know you've seen Wolf of Wall Street and Boiler Room and all these movies, and it's exciting. And some, some areas are like that, but most profiles don't have that sort of assertiveness. And so when you're looking at people that do customer support for a living, They would say quite the contrary. They show a lot of empathy. They have the patience. They walk people through calls. And those are the sort of professionalism that I respect very much. And so by being here today, an owner of a call center, I may be able to shed some light, some of the misconceptions, some of the stereotypes that we have. We look good and we sound good. But there's a lot of us out there that are Doing good. And I just wanted to let you know that today.

Yeah, well, I think it's really— I think it's really important to make that differentiation, right? As you said, it's, you know, Hollywood, it's super exciting, right? It's exciting to watch those. It's exciting to do that. But it's also the call you don't want to get, right? And you— if you actually sat down and thought about being on the other end of those phone calls, you'd be like, pay your dues, Ian.

You got to pay your dues.

That's right.

Yeah.

But now, you know, there's, there's better ways. There's, there's a lot of better ways to go about the same process, and you're, you're implementing them. Looking at your, your company and your culture that you've been building, is there anything else that kind of— what are the other things that you think about? Because you've, you've integrated play, which is amazing. It's definitely I think a huge factor in helping people to enjoy it. You actually know the names of your employees. You're, you're more focused on really the soft skills. And I think those are, I mean, those are, those are amazing in and of themselves, but is there anything else that you really look at as kind of a pillar to how you've been able to have such a well-oiled running machine that you haven't had to take loans out for?

You and I are so on the same page, and this next question is the most important answer. It's promotion from within. I love to delegate. I love to give people responsibility, even if it's a first-day agent. If the kid wants to stand up in class and, you know, do some role play, he's showing initiative. So I only promote from within. I look to see what sort of additional responsibilities on and off the phone that could build someone's skills and their self-reliance and self-confidence. I'm always the one that speaks last because I'd like to hear what you have to say first. It could be spot on, it could be way out there, but the fact that you're contributing for the better good, for the synergy of the call center. So a lot of these young men and women did not have a certain mentor, coach, parent, best friend, or teacher that did not give them the sort of inspiration Or motivation to make themselves vulnerable, to allow themselves to share ideas. And what I tried to do was not to get them to be weak, but I want to bend them. I want to see how far they can go mentally and physically, because I'd like to be the last boss they ever have. And you work 80 hours so you don't have to work 40. And if these young men and women can build this endurance, they can— muscle memory, they have specific work ethics, not only from an example, but from themselves, then I think they're on an excellent path to have a very fulfilling career and not to be making excuses because most people quit 80% in. And there's 1,000 excuses why you and I didn't have to jump on the podcast today, but we're both responsible adults. We're both professionals and we enjoy each other's company. And if we can build these sort of bridges and these sort of relationships one by one, there's no reason why these people can't build a foundation of life. And, and I'm only here for 8 hours of their day. I mean, I might spend more time with them than they do their own family, but the moment they walk in the door, Ian, I'm accountable for them.

Okay.

And I also want to recharge their batteries and give them that sort of confidence. So if they do have challenges, outside of the office, they're feeling good enough to be able to take them on and work with them. And you had mentioned earlier, these people could be coming into the office with issues that might be affecting their work. And so let's say they're having an off day. Let's say they raised their voice or did not have patience. First and foremost, we don't cause a scene on the floor. We'll bring them aside. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But then me being from Philadelphia and a certain culture, I'm going to say 2 things to them. First is, that's out of character, you know, you know. And second is, you're not like that. This is, this is somebody that I'm seeing for the first time today. And so I'm letting them know that way, not as a boss that's going to fire them or someone that's going to berate them. I just want them to know that you're out of character and that you're better than that. And I've seen you at your best. And then I'll mention things, not just the boss saying, come on, champ, you can do it. Now, remember last week when you trained those 3 guys? Remember when you got 12 in one day back in April? I know the day. I know your accounts. Do you remember when we broke bread and had pizza 2 months ago when you first got hired and how cool that was? So what I'm seeing today, and I can understand and respect it, and I don't want to pry, you don't have to tell me, But I just want to let you know I got your back. And when you're here, I need for you to be at your best so you can be at your best at home. So the circle becomes complete. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't work. I've seen people spiral out of control. There's things outside the office where they just— they lose their composure. And they do a Jerry Maguire on the phone. They'll curse, they'll scream, they'll cry, they'll They'll kick something, they'll quit, and they'll realize that they overextended themselves at that time. So to me, I almost give people— unless they're really breaking a labor law or really destroying furniture— if they happen to lash out or just lose their cool for a minute, let's do a 1 or 2 last chance timeout to see if we can just calm down for a minute. Get them off the phone, water on the face, pinball, buy them something to eat. I love this kid. Let's just see if we can possibly find his focus again before it's too late.

Right. Well, that's, that's treating them like a human. That's such a novel idea. Treat them like a— treat humans like a human. Uh, and it works. I, I would imagine that that works, you know, not all the time, right? Sometimes there's just too much to, to something, but I would imagine that a lot of the time you're able to refocus and help move through the situation rather than just escalating it, because that doesn't help anybody.

I'll let you know when it doesn't work. When someone that's been with you for years doesn't give you a 2 weeks notice, I understand there's opportunities out there, but we walk together, we work together, and it's okay that you leave. Everybody should have opportunities, but it would have been nice to shake your hand, and to wish you well, and to say that we had a good run together. And then I had during COVID people that I relied upon so that were very disappointing. And then I had people that out of the blue amongst chaos showed such leadership that I couldn't help but promote them and praise them during that time. So as I say before, there are certain times in life when you see somebody's true character. And I'm not asking you to do something you don't want to do, but you told me we had an agreement that you were that individual that I could rely upon. And sometimes business is two forward or two backwards, one forward, or sometimes two— there's always motion in this. And I've lost some amazing soldiers, but once again, I promoted more than I lost. So that's how certain businesses can withstand and be able to offset that sort of attrition.

Right. Well, I'd like to— because you mentioned earlier you would talk about it— I'd love for you to jump back into how you've managed to grow. I know it's taken 14 years, but growing without outside investment is a huge thing because, like you said, consultant— a lot of people will always point towards, well, just get a loan, get an investor, grow really, really fast. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the business side of how did you go through planning and ensuring that you didn't have to do that? And 14 years, I was working in 2008 when that happened. And not everybody remembers that now. There's a whole generation of workforce that doesn't remember that recession. And I was, you know, there's been a few events We talked about pandemic, COVID happened and shut things down. So how have you strategically and from that business standpoint been able to grow continuously and weather those events all whilst not having to be beholden to some investment or high-interest loan?

A lot of it had to do with due diligence and making sure that I was prepared to make certain financial, emotional, and time decisions. But once again, my business model is very simple. I had margins. And so as long as, let's say I landed one account, I had enough money to pay for the station that I was renting at this blended center, pay the salary of the individual, and make myself my margin. And so that worked out well. The only inconvenience was that I didn't have my private space, my office. People were looking by, waving at me constantly. There was no privacy. And the scalability was limited because of the location, but there was a perfect place to start where I wasn't losing money. As long as someone prepaid me for the month, I had enough to pay for the seat, the person, the insurance, and I made my money. And it just started to grow. And as I mentioned before, after getting a couple dozen seats, it wasn't worth paying the $200 a station. Now you're looking at close to, you know, thousands of dollars where I could easily be renting the space and buying the used computers. But it took a while.

Right.

It took me about 2 years of renting seats to be able to save enough to build out a center because that cost close to $65,000. And then we're just talking about a 150-seat center in regards to the server room, the desks, the computers, the chairs, HR, the, you know, where people eat.

Right. The structure is one thing. Then there's everything else that goes in.

And I did it on the cheap. I mean, we were building a lot of our furniture, which is beautiful. You got beautiful wood here. But a lot of people want to buy the turnkey metal stations for like, you know, $1,000 a seat. I couldn't afford that. The one thing I wanted to spend the money on was the computers and the chairs and the noise-canceling headsets and the air conditioning in the server room. Everybody else was cool with the desk because you could write on it like school. Who cares? Spill something on it. I could put stickers on it.

I thought so.

I could care less. Have fun with it. So that's why I said—

yeah, I worked, I worked in cubicles. That was not okay. You did not get to mess with the desk.

You could with mine. And people were doing hearts and putting people's initials in it. And why not? It was like a high school desk. And so in that environment, I was there for 6 years. And so I was paying a lot of rent. And, you know, it was a lot, but I was able to save enough money that during that time, I found a beautiful piece of property in Barrio Aranjuez. which is by the 3rd largest public hospital, 5 universities, the old train station, and the old Aduanas building. So I am so centrally located compared to the office parks and the free trade zones that are on the highways and out yonder. I'm only 300 seats. I don't need a 5,000-seat center. If I do, that's a great problem to have.

Right.

But until that time comes, I want people to be able to walk here. And so it took me all those years to gut the building, build it out, spec it out, and make it ready. And now I got a 300-seat center that we're sitting in right now. I want to give you a story that has such flair to it. But unfortunately, a lot of the biographies and these real-life stories are about the grind, about the sacrifice, about the risk-taking.

Right.

And what I did was I doubled and tripled down on myself. Some people say that's a little bit I should have maybe cut my losses, walked away, or took those partners, as you say. But I wasn't raised that way. I'm a very simple, humble kind of cat. And I don't like things too complicated with contracts and numbers all over the place. I like to know if I have a dollar in my pocket, I can buy something for a dollar. And if my building costs $5, maybe we need to wait 5 more times.

Right, right.

I just kept it really simple. And so maybe it's genius or maybe it's not, but this is what I do know, that you know, 10% of businesses only make it 1 year. 1% of businesses make it 10 years. And the fact that not only in my 14th year, but in a nearshore outsourcing call center industry where Amazon has 10,000 seats in Costa Rica, go figure. But you and I both know—

Right.

That if you have a certain company culture and you treated people the certain way, You will grow. That's my secret to success, Ian. That's, that's the code that I cracked.

Hmm, that's so true. I mean, you take care of your team, you take care of your, your employees, they're, they're gonna want you to succeed. And if usually, if everyone wants you to succeed and you all get to work together towards it, true, you're probably gonna succeed. But you have a lot more brainpower and thought behind making it happen rather than, you know, any alternative where it's like, well, we don't really care if it makes it, we're not invested in it. Then it becomes, you know, your employees are invested in your success. They see it's a lot easier to tie your goals to something if you like it than if you don't.

It's really not about the money. The money is always going to come. Your time is worth something. But to me, it was to see if something could be created, is to see if I could follow the dreams that I had at 18 years old, and to know if I was capable. Because there's so many naysayers and gray believers out there, and it's okay. Their N-O means they don't K-N-O-W enough about what I'm doing. But how could people compare notes with me? How many of my friends were moving abroad and starting a call center? No one even knew what a call center was. So many years ago. And all they could say was, go, Richard, go. Because they knew I was passionate about something, my intentions were honorable. They had no clue what advice to give me except be safe. But they see it as fascinating. Because there's nothing better than somebody that was very true to themselves. So that's where I can look at myself in the mirror and just be, and be very proud of the fact that I fulfilled that sort of vision quest.

Well, it's amazing. I mean, it's, it's always amazing when someone has a goal and they make it. It always— it takes, it takes a lot of effort and time, right? It's not— having a dream is great. Following through with it is, is the hard part because we all have dreams. Everybody has dreams and ideas and wants to develop something, make something, but not everyone follows through. So it's It's great to see you.

How about some support? Ian, I am so supporting the work that you do, and we're friends as well, and we're only going to be, you know, networking. And that's important. You can't do it alone. That's why besides the promotions and delegation, it's about the mutual support that you have done by allowing me on your show today to talk about my ideas, and me doing my part by contributing to your audience. But promoting you to a new market, where they get to meet Ian, and go to your website and learn. And when you come visit here, imagine my entire call center that's going to watch this podcast, you're gonna have 150 new friends that can't wait to meet you. And amazing. Those are the sort of gifts that I think you and I could give back. It's not financial. We're giving energy gifts and information gifts. Those are the sort of gifts that I value much more. Yeah.

Yeah, it's— yeah, you can make money, but, but it's the rest of the stuff is what matters at the end, right? Nobody, nobody— What is it? The great, great example that people like to repeat is experience, right? Nobody, nobody when they're really old goes, man, I wish I'd made that extra $1. It would have really changed my life. It's more What other experiences could I have had? What— those are the only things that anybody who's lived a long time goes, that's what matters. No. And so I can't argue with them. I'm still— I haven't lived long enough to be able to counter that. And I have to agree with it. It's— experience is so important and be able to share information and what we're doing and And working together, like you said, it's working together. Whole rising tide raises all ships. Collaboration is the only real way forward. Isolation just doesn't, doesn't work out well.

I mentioned before, it's your passion. You and I both watch many podcasts to compare notes and to be inspired and just to see what's out there. But a lot of them, I think, have different intentions. Or it's a bait or switch, or they're just there for entertainment. What I'm looking for is somebody that really has a grounded center that is there to expand and share. And as I said before, Ian, your work is incredible, and I know that you take it very seriously. And you do a lot of work prior to all of your shows and that's something that people need to admire. It's quality. And as long as you continue on this path and put out this sort of amazing work that you do, don't be surprised if more individuals like myself gravitate towards you and want to work with you. And so just using that as an example today of our friendship and what we're sharing, please everybody, if you, if you feel inspired or you want to add some wind to Ian or my sails, Or just somebody else's sails that's around you. That's the sort of initiative and the assertiveness that will, as you say, raise the waters for all the ships there. And I couldn't agree with you more.

Yeah. Well, and then this is— yeah, this has been amazing to be able to talk to you and share your ideas on this and what you've been able to accomplish. I think it's really important that more of these stories of, hey, we have a successful thing. We figured out how to make something better. We'll share it so other people can copy it and do great things too. I think the whole hide, hide the secret sauce of how to, how to have good relationships and have good employees and, and build that, it shouldn't be a secret sauce. That should just be normal across the board. And there's You know, you be the unique part, but make everything else work really well. And for anyone, I'd love to kind of just— in wrapping this, for, for people that want to work with you specifically, what's the best way to get a hold of you and, and connect with you?

Thank you, Ian. I appreciate that. First thing you need to do is buy yourself a first-class plane ticket and fly down and visit me. That's number one. But if you can't do that today, you could give me a call, 888-271-6750. I'd love to hear what your scripts sound like and what you're doing. You could shoot me an email, ceo@costaricascallcenter.com. And if I may make a suggestion, I have an amazing Facebook fan page. About 97,000 Costa Rican Ticos are there. It'll really give you a pulse on what's happening in the Costa Rica call center industry, and you get to see a lot of the fun stuff that we're doing at night, the Pura Vida life. Amazing.

Amazing. And we'll, we will make sure to get those links from you. And we'll put them all in the description for everyone. So we'll make it as easy as possible to find that. So yeah, again, thank you so much for, for taking some time. And I will absolutely let you know when we're able to make it down to Costa Rica. We will definitely meet up.

Ian, I had the best time today with you and your audience. And I really couldn't thank you enough for spending the time with me and allowing me to share my ideas with you.

Amazing. Thank you.