Can a spat shoes with neon lights help you #getnoticed? With Richard Blank

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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. And I'm so excited because we are going to Costa Rica, San Jose, to meet Richard Blank. Richard, welcome to the show.

So happy to be here with you today, Jim, and your audience. I love The Unnoticed Entrepreneur, and I can't wait to share some tips and tricks with your audience today.

Well, you know, tips and tricks. You know, you at the age of 27 left Northeast Philly, where of course home of Rocky, and went to Costa Rica. And since then you've built an amazing business in the call center business. And we are going to talk today about, you know, call center business, but also so much more around communication, around how people can optimize their engagement with people. And you have so much experience. Let me not interrupt anymore. Richard Blank, Tell us, what's your experience of how entrepreneurs can get noticed, not just in their hometown, but in a new country? What special challenges do you face when you set up a business in a new country?

Well, it was quite simple, Jim, and first and foremost, I needed to learn their language. It's a great way to show respect, keeps an open mind. It shows structured discipline and especially cognitive skills. If anybody that speaks a second language, to my mind, bears the mark of higher education. So naturally I was offered a second plate of food and another glass of wine because I could charm them in their language. So that's number one. Secondly, I am a guest in Costa Rica. I've been a guest here for the last 23 years. And so understanding the traditions and the culture, because whatever happened in Philadelphia really doesn't have that sort of importance here. So by having the essence, learning new things enabled me to incorporate my life here. I married the girl of my dreams. 15 years ago, I started my company. We grew to 150 seats, living the dream. And I always believed that entrepreneurs shouldn't be hard on themselves. Patience is a virtue, and there is something called momentum. I started Spanish when I graduated high school in Northeast Philly, Abington, and I continued studying it at Arizona. So I was building on that momentum. There was positive reinforcement. I had the fidelity to continue. And putting any sort of pressures aside or opinions or career expectations, I was a little selfish. So getting past parents' guilt and deciding to live a poet's life, I threw my hat in the ring and decided to go for it. And my good friend Jim James, look where we are today.

Well, and for those of you that can't see, you know, Richard is putting me to shame because he's fully dressed up even with cufflinks and a waistcoat in Costa Rica. I thought it was hot in Costa Rica. I actually went there in 1989. So another reason I'm I'm really excited to talk to Richard, but he's got an amazing— is that a Wurlitzer behind you? A big jukebox and a big candy machine as well.

The Wurlitzer is downstairs. She's the '64. This is a 1961 Ricola Regis. I actually own 6 machines, but I so appreciate your interest in my beautiful jukeboxes. I also have 13 pinball machines as well, so I'm a collector of these beautiful antiques that are usually much older than the ages that are playing them. For free, of course.

So Richard, you know, you're a man with a great many skills. You did drop in that you've got a call center now with over 115 seats, I think you said, in Costa Rica. Tell us a little bit about how does a call center work and why should someone use a call center? I know that's not necessarily everything we're going to talk about, but we should at least touch on your core offering for your clients.

Well, I appreciate that. Naturally, we've all seen what Hollywood has done with call centers and telemarketers. They've glamorized it with The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, Glengarry Glen Ross, Prime Gig. I mean, it's all out there. Now, we do not sell stock. We don't do casinos, books, pharmacies, or sweepstakes. There's a lot of amazing people out there that can earn a living making and receiving phone calls. Now, Costa Rica's a very strict Catholic country and the agents are extremely selective and delicate on the campaigns in which they decide to give their time and efforts. Now, Amazon, HP, Intel, Oracle, they're here. So obviously it's not just the infrastructure, but it's the labor force. There's a 95% literacy rate. So imagine the sort of neutral English levels that we have here. Being close to the United States gave us that advantage to the proxemics and the expats that are here. And so It's almost like United States too. And so it was very easy for me. A lot of people spoke English, but the call center business. Yes. Well, unless you understand making and receiving phone calls, you may have expectations that are way out of whack for a telemarketer. We just can't put magic dust on phone calls and bring you 100 clients. There is structure and discipline, but at the call center, we do have some sort of technical advantages. We do have a backup generator. I have redundancy in regards to internet. I have immediate IT support and a great server room that can support turnkey stations, headsets with noise-canceling capabilities. But I got the best thing here, my good friend. I have synergy. This building can house 300 people. After COVID, I had to let most people go, so we only have a fraction of the people here on site. Most, it's hybrid or people work from home. But at one time when this place was packed and I walked those roads, And I listened to these bilingual agents engaged on the phone, converting calls, getting positive escalations, maximizing their English with the thesaurus and using certain strategic and diplomatic words like guide, assist, and lend a hand, and asking for clarification and falling on swords instead of excusing somebody on the phone, always keeping the tone positive and giving a wonderful experience. I saw people that were self-reliant and self-confident and were exceptionally marketable. So I gravitated towards that. I love the art of speech, and most people today prefer chats and emails. Oh no. I believe the best way to retain a client, to get an upsell, to get a referral, or best case scenario, exit interview if you had fumbled the football, is to speak with somebody and try to maintain that interpersonal communication and possibly resolve any sort of conflict management that you may have with clients. Or with your staff.

Wow. I mean, and you make it sound quite theatrical there, you know, Richard, in terms of a performance. I mean, are call centers, do you think, a center of performance on behalf of a company? Because as you say, now it's becoming either bots or it's becoming just online chats with platforms like Zendesk, for example. How do you make sure that your team also adopt that kind of culture? And I think we're also gonna talk about some of the skills that you help people to understand? For example, like the famous buffer boomerang technique. I mean, take us through some of those because you've got a huge amount of wisdom running this call center, but also as an individual, you've got a huge amount of wisdom there as well.

Well, I always believe in the same message but different delivery, and I need to give homage to my mentors that came from your beautiful country. Basil Rathbone was undoubtedly one of the greatest speakers, and I studied his works carefully. looked up certain words and rewinded it because his performances with Nigel Bruce, especially with Old-Time Radio when it was sight unseen, he really expanded his reach. And so that was my greatest mentor. And I also gravitated towards Jeremy Brett. What an amazing speaker. And so that's a lot of my colorful speech comes from his attention-grabbing way. He really captivated audiences. Now, Remington Steele and Templeton Peck were another influences of mine. I actually have a framed signed copy from Pure Spies on my wall as Remington Steele.

Oh, do you really? Hence possibly the sartorial reference to the Remington Steele looking so debonair.

It had to be, Dodd. I also restored a 1984 Mercedes Lang for my clients. Really, I am kind of acting like Remington Steele a little bit. He had better hair though. So why these phone calls? And I can walk you through a very simple phone call. And the beautiful thing, Jim James, is I will not compromise your ethics, values, and morals. And if you don't find this sort of good faith structure, then find another structure. But this thing to me, over tens of thousands of phone calls and over 2 decades and really analyzing it, has shown me the best return in regards to our performance. And it can be done over and over again, and it can be done in sections. So if you have romantic deaths where they hang up on you in the first 30 seconds, At least you did 4 name drops. You asked certain questions and you were smiling. And so we, I teach the agents to jump clouds. I teach them to buy 30 seconds. And then if they become even more astute, then they know when to ask certain clarification questions. But let me take a huge deep breath. I know we got 20 minutes, but I will run through on how to make a prospecting phone call and break through every checkpoint for your people. So at least you can master stages. The first thing is when you're making a phone call is to use your anonymity for your advantage. You don't do that for the whole call. That's shady, but you get your first 3 seconds. And the best thing that I would do is the company name spike and ask how the company's doing. Hey, how's the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast doing today? Of course, Alex is answering the phone, going to be like, we're doing great today. What is your name? And that's when I get the Buffer boomerang technique. Then I'd say, hey Alex, name drop and buffering their tone. That's an excellent question. Just kind of easing it out. My name is repeating the question for active listening, Richard Blank, and sending it back positive. Capturing negative tones. That's an excellent question. Repeating the question and sending it back positive. That's a buffer boomerang. And that happens all sorts of the call until you readjust the tone. So now Alex and I are cool because I said the name of the all-noticed entrepreneur. Great. I would love to speak to Jim James. And he said, all right, I'll transfer you. And I go, you know what? Before we go, Alex, I just want to let you know you are incredible and I'm going to let Jim know. So next thing you know, I get the pass to pitch from your assistant. I get to Jim and then Jim's like, it's Jim James. Nice, Jim James. You sound so— so I go, hey Jim, Alex is the best. You've got one of the best people working with you. You have no idea who I am, but you have to admit, man, I gained 6 paces on that one and I reduced your heat prints from a 10 to a 2. And you're not saying a word but thanks and hanging up on me. My brother, at least I got 30 seconds from you. Then you're gonna say, who are you? Another buffer boomerang. Hey Jim, so glad that you asked that. My name is Richard Blank. Who is Richard Blank? You know I was gonna tell you that. My company is Costa Rica. And then we keep buffer boomeranging until we can even out the tone. And then we have a conversation. And that's where the microexpression reading comes in. A phonetic microexpression reading. Your tone, your side needs to be consistent. You need a consistent variable for inconsistencies. In my opinion, your tone represents the emotion. It should be confident and empathetic. I can't stress that enough. You mirror image technique how fast and how loud they're speaking. You do this in 30-second to 2-minute intervals. I'm not doing semantics. I'm not doing tone. I'm purely going on sound. And if there's a spike or a dip is when you interject with a confirmation question, rebuttal question, or something that's transitional to confirm something. These are checkpoints with people. Okay. Now, if you can do this in 5 minutes, you got 2.5. No one's ever going to be in the same quadrant every time. By 10 minutes, when it gets—

Just put that back up there for you. Can be because people that can't watch this, but are listening, he's just held up a 2 by 2 and we've got phonetic, micro expression, and reading. And then we have what looked to be almost like submarine periscope hairs where we've got at the top pitch and at the bottom pitch. And to the left, to the west, we have rate and negative, and to the east we have rate positive.

It's an 8th grade pre-algebra XY chart. Am I yelling at you? Yeah, I'm an 8. I talk loud.

Am I—

how fast am I going? Well, put me as an 8 as well. So obviously it's quadrant 1 and I'm an 8 in pitch and 8 in rate. I'm not Grandpa Joe. I was negative 3 and negative 3. He's negative. So the thing is to see, because it's a new read, that if you're consistent in regards to reaction, these are phonetic non-sight microtracks. When you are on the phone, 3 of my senses are removed. Your taste, touch, and smell. Your hearing expands. But I've argued with my class in regards to image streaming. Books are better than, uh, an actual picture. You have your imagination, you have adjectives, you have description. Okay? So this is ways to capture these calls. And put color in your language. You're more of a painting than a print. So these are the checkpoints of keeping people's attention by being engaged, showing active listening. So besides doing this spike in the dip thing, really the tell sign is the answering speed. Subconsciously, I can control my tone, rate, and pitch. I can curse at you, yell at you, scream at you, and interrupt you, but I can't answer speed you consistently. That's why the police always ask you the 3rd or 4th tough question and they gauge your Answering speed. Yeah, that's a tell sign. That's when I'm catching you. Now, when you become lucid after about 3 weeks of practice and it becomes habit, then use it to your advantage like fire. Don't burn them, but ask them for clarification questions because they're being facetious or overextended themselves like I just did. I'm going too fast.

Okay.

So we're on the conversation and we would like to share multiple points with people because Costa Rica's call center offers multiple things. So what I like to do is bring out the dessert cart. Each thing is like an equalizer. I'll talk about appointment setting. What about lead generation? Customer support, Jim. Would you back off this? But I'll give a little bit of time in between each one for gauging a positive or negative reaction. When I get a positive, I stop the horizontal, go to vertical, and start asking open-ended questions. So now when I've exhausted everything and I'm going through the call, I am constantly reminding you again and raking the questions. Remember we spoke about A, B, and D. Are there any final questions that you may have, Jim? Could you tell me about C one more time? Of course I can. I'm so glad you brought that. I raped you again. To double-check, there's always insurance policies. Remember to ask Jim his spelling in regards to military alphabet. A lot of people have served. It's consistent. It shows you're not insulting somebody by asking them how to pronounce their exotic and beautiful name. And then finally, when you do send that follow-up custom-made meeting minutes email to Jim James, I am definitely going to be Putting in writing Alex's participation and memento from the beginning. Why? Because I'm probably 1 out of 100 that ever did that, but we're still not finished yet. My friend Jim James, when I call your company back and the Unnoticed Entrepreneur podcast picks up, I've been there before, so I'm definitely going to ask how you're doing today. And then you're like, is this Richard Blank? Of course it is. Hey, this is Alex. Thank you so much for what you wrote and you said about me. I've been here for years and no one's ever said this. Oh, by the way, it's Jim's birthday next week and you better mention his anniversary and his direct extension is 214 and call him on Thursdays before he plays golf.

Really?

How many more goodies are you going to gimme for Jim? Are you going to hand me the pen beside him that Gon dragged with him? Thank you so much, Alex. You're the best. You really, really, really are. And I can't appreciate this enough. And so what did I do? I was consistent. I was authentic. I was real. At any stage of that conversation, if I had a romantic death and you hung up on me, look what I just did. And so I believe in name drops and personal pronouns like you or are to keep people's attentions. Pause before names and numbers, use them in transitional sentences and tie-downs. That's what you do. And if you can practice that dedicated practice, you'll have beautiful conversations with people. And if you have the luxury of time, If you can write a draft and not send it, if you can sleep on it, ponder it, hit the gym over it, in my case, play pinball and drive convertibles on it. Maybe the following day I can call Jim and say, hey pal, I do apologize for my tone. I was totally not in the right. I listened to what you said. I got a chance to chill about it. You are my main man and I want to keep this friendship. And so let's take a part 2 on this one and let's restart again. And those are the sort of relationships that build the best foundations in business where there's no surprises. And you're forthright with people. And if chaos causes character, and if I can respect Jim and my agents, myself and my business during the tough times, then when it's the good times, it's just aces. And so there you go, my man.

Richard. Wow. Wow. Jim, you know, just opened the pipe and just let you drive down that road with full speed ahead. That was fantastic. And look, for those people that found that a lot and quickly, we'll have a transcript, of course, And we'll also put Richard's details in the show notes so you can reach out to him because there's so many years of, well, 20 years of experience as you can tell. And we're trying to get in 20 minutes, which is almost impossible. Richard, as an entrepreneur, what would you say is the one piece of advice you'd give to my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs about how to get noticed? You've explained on the call center side all the nuances there, but what about as a business owner for you yourself? What have you done that you think really works? That other entrepreneurs can do?

Well, if they want to wear spats shoes, have neon lights, marquees, an Art Deco building, and collect pinball machines, I don't know what to tell you because I had advice. Why don't you put a phone on your thing? What am I putting a phone on? My Costa Rica call center sells Art Deco Broadway. Why not? Because I need to be the red umbrella amongst all the black ones in that one commercial. I need to stand out some way, and I just can't do it with my charm and good looks. I'm a player, but I need to show some sort of authenticity and I need to show real taste because if I try to do something that is in mode right now, it's going to be passé tomorrow. I know who I am, and if I can do it with the images that I'm giving out and I can act by wage by buying secondhand computers and secondhand furniture, doesn't mean it has gum underneath it, but we're talking about Dell computers that have barely been used. Call centers go out of business from time to time. I'm definitely scooping up things and I'm sharp on that. So you don't need to go out there and throw money around. There are extremely conservative ways. In fact, my friend, I started my business out of my house, got my first account, and I was renting a turnkey station at a blended center. It was like an expanded internet cafe. Did that for 2 years till I rented space to build out 150 seats. Had to be there for 6 years to build enough capital to do it and build out a 300-seat center. So this isn't what you think. This is old-school grandma telling me, if you can't do it in cash, you don't buy it. And I had to wait patiently to have that sort of responsible capital to ensure job stability and to pay those benefits. Yes.

Yeah. And you've plainly done that really well. So to some degree, the building itself and the cars and the pinball machines are all you, they're all authentic, and they in a way anchor the brand. Would that be right to say, Richard, that, you know, everything that you live in and that you represent is displayed for clients to see, and that's how you're getting noticed?

Oh, am I a guest in this building. She's a beautiful 1958er. She was called Super La Quadra. I'm a guest in her, and one day I'll be dead. She'll still be here. But while the time that I'm here, I'll preserve the walls, I tell her how pretty she is every day. People make a living here. People are happy here. She was abandoned for many years. I mean, there was so many things that she went through. And so by passing this energy along to me and allowing me to be here in my muse, in my environment, it's, it was such a gift. Oh, I forgot to add one thing on my phone calls. I went too fast.

Well, let's do that.

Can I mention one last thing, please?

Sure. And then I also, the other thing you haven't mentioned was your Facebook group with over 100,000 Oh, we'll get to that in a minute.

And you're definitely gonna be front page there or there. It's called the Me Too technique. We spoke about earlier in regards to phonetics to matching them, but a Me Too technique is if you hear a dog in the background, you can inadvertently and passive aggressively let them know you love dogs, but just don't say that to hush 'em. Ask the dog's name, what breed it is. And here's my favorite question. How old's your puppy? You know, the dog's 12 years old. Oh, I forgot that my puppy's 12. Of course it is. You know, I love the puppy. And then they'll understand to put it outside. And what I've done is I've anchored with you. And that's usually when the client comes back and asks my name again for clarification. And that's okay. Not the introduction conclusion. We really connected in the body. And that's when I do my QA grading is why I give 500 points. You're only supposed to give 100, but I'll give you the real prize. If Mrs. Jones says, Richard, that's so nice. I know you love dogs. I do. Tell me more about Fluffy. That's the best. You know, I just gained 20 minutes. It's mine.

And what's really interesting, Richard, listening to you is, and we're running out of time here, is that it's all about getting time from the person on the other end of the phone, building relationship. Isn't it that listening to you in the last 22 minutes, a lot of the techniques you're talking about are how to get someone to relax and let you talk to them and let them share with you about who they are and what they need. Is that right? Would it be fair to say?

It's the only way it's going to last. If not, you're a one-trick pony. And if they catch you on a weird Wednesday, then you're off. And I think the greatest thing to do is show authenticity in the beginning. Oh, do your due diligence. Look at a LinkedIn profile or website so at least you can custom make a voicemail, email, or as I would say, a company name spike when you're calling them and say it better than Alex does. No offense, but you know I'm going to say it better than you. And that's the way to buy me 30 seconds to get past the pitch to speak to Jim.

I'm delighted. I don't think you had to pitch me. I think we had to pitch you to come on the show because you have so much value to offer. Richard Blank, if people want to find out more about you and the Costa Rica call center and this planned mastermind that we're going to try and figure out how to do in San Jose, I'd love to come back there one day.

Yeah.

How can people find out about you?

Well, they buy a first-class plane ticket and fly down here like you did.

Oh man, I went overland back in 1989. But how can people find you?

Remember, this is the real world. I'm only kidding. But yeah, no, but come and visit me and really see for yourself why it's a tropical paradise. It really is a beautiful democratic society, well-educated people.

Pura Vida is the style, ecotourism, medical tourism.

You have zip lines and waterfalls and volcanoes and the exotic fruit and the feria, the vegetables on the weekend for a fraction of the cost if you want. The health here is incredible. People are in the best shape. They're beautiful. That's why I moved here.

Richard Blaine, and you've obviously found the fountain of youth. If people want to find you, it's costaricacallcenter.com.

Costa Rica's call center. Take the apostrophe out. Yeah.

costaricascallcenter.com. Richard Blaine. Thank you so much for joining me. We're a little bit over our normal allotted time, but you got so much in there. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing so much amazing value and bringing back some great memories. Thank you for joining me on The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.

That's kind from you, Greg. Thank you so much.

My pleasure. So we've been listening to the fairly rapid-speaking Richard Blank. He had so many things that he wanted to share, but I can tell you it's amazing. And we will make you play it all on like 1.5x speed so you can get it all. And put all the show notes and transcripts in there. And if you've enjoyed the show, please do review it and share it with a fellow entrepreneur. And the more we can all share this information, the better off we'll be. And until we meet again, just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you so much for listening to the show. Now I'd just like to mention our sponsor for this show. The Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by a company called Prowly. Prowly is an all-in-one software for leveraging your public relations activities. You can boost the media relations game for your business, find media contacts, send out press releases, and get more coverage while saving time and money on everyday tasks. Check it out, prowly.com.