Over 2 years ago I was working for Bell Mobility, at a fixed hourly rate of $17.21, with a comfortable benefit program as well as 37.5 hours a week guaranteed unless I wanted less. For those of you who know me well, you can obviously picture the lack of balance - currently I own and operate a design & marketing company out of Vancouver, BC (Synchronous Design & Marketing), and I take my own fate into my own hands. No benefits, no guarantees. I love this environment however because it constantly challenges me and I have no complaints.

That being said, the corporate world does give you some valuable insights into business, finance, and human relations, and I would still go through it again if I had to do it over again (although just after a year, I hated it so much I quit without a back-up job). For young people who want to become independent business owners and entrepreneurs, yet do not have the funds or the ideas to start upon, I would actually recommend going through a corporate job for the experience of it. Learn what you can get, and then leave.

My specific job function was a call centre agent, and for the most part I worked in the business/corporate account department. I was the asshole on the other side when you call 611 and then press 0 on your cell phones. And then I would go onto explain why that extra charge IS a valid charge and you still have to pay it, or give you some lame excuse to why we’ve raised the System Access/911 Fee on your cell phone bills. Now out of my defense, I was one of the best agents for troubleshooting phone problems, billing errors, and also troubleshooting our own customer management systems that we used to handle inquiries.

This job obviously involved plenty of conversation with customers, as well as interaction with colleagues as well as obliging to corporate standards and guidelines. It was interesting and educational while it lasted.

1. Memorizing your workflow or training is not always the best thing.

   Memorization of cell phone plans, billing details, pricing etc. was discouraged at Bell. Of course, there are some items that you memorize after a while (price of Caller ID etc.) but the truth is that the pricing for those items, the conditions etc. can differ from many different account types, and trying to memorize this all during the training course was a ridiculous goal, not to mention unnecessary. The truth about these plan details and what not is that they tend to change from time to time as well. We had an internal knowledge-base system similar to Wikipedia, with all current and past details of different products and services that we were encouraged to refer to. This may increase each call time by a small amount, but it drastically reduced training time as well as margin of error on account handling.

   The same applies to my current profession as a design & marketing guy, who constantly works with PHP code. It’s a given that I probably have tonnes of PHP commands and syntaxes memorized, but I don’t try to memorize it. All I need is to be aware of what is possible, and when the time comes to use it, I look it up on the PHP official website to verify, or look it up on Google for application examples. Some people that know how much I code may assume I memorize most of my functions but that’s far from true.

2. Rules ARE bendable depending on your people skills.

   In my work environment there were always disputes about pricing, contract extensions and what not. As much as there are corporate guidelines on the eligibility for perks and discounts for certain clients (based on length of business, length of contract, average monthly revenue and past promotion records etc.), there’s always a margin to it.

   Some clients would call in all ready for an argument and complaints - some people just seem to have an issue with corporations overall, and preserve that left-wing attitude that makes them view corporations as the “enemy” or something of the sort. When these guys call in and start an argument from the beginning, there was no way I would budge and give a discount, or make a one-time adjustment. I would hold my ground and did not give a shit if it escalated to one of those “supervisor” calls (and they’re not always the actual supervisors - just more experienced agents specializing in escalations).

   On the other hand, if a person calls in with a happy jolly tone, the last thing I feel like saying is “Sorry ma’am, that is a valid charge as per your service agreement.” or “That offer is no longer available on your account.” To avoid any potential arguments, and to keep the conversation civil, I would just let it go and turn a blind eye. Besides, the management is not capable of checking all the discounts and adjustments made, so small amounts could just fly. It was simply the margin of error that the corporation had in mind anyways.

3. Sales pitches, and mirroring personalities

   Even in the customer service center which is set up to wait for inbound calls, we had a fair bit of sales quotas to meet. For example, when a person calls in, and we notice they are using some text messages but does not have a text messaging bundle, we can offer it and try to get him/her to add it to the account. These are small sales in amount but sales nonetheless, and throughout my career I became better and better at naturally spotting the clients’ needs, offering the right product in the right tone of voice, and getting the sale.

   What also helps is to always mirror the personality of the person you are trying to sell. If it’s a rowdy businessman calling in with some ego, your tone of voice would match, and the choices of words as well (”You got that right sir!!!” in a up-beat tone, kind of sucking up would do the trick). If it’s an older female who is about to stick a golf club up your bum if you say one wrong thing, you want to keep things very fine-tuned (”Yes, that is correct ma’am.” in a polite tone would be suitable). There are many different archetypes of people based on personality, age, ethnicity and what not, and over time I obtained some natural feel on how to respond to different people. And this is a continuous learning process for me - to keep learning and polishing my skills for sales.

Time management is one of the issues that I always try to get to the bottom of, and I always emphasize it. But it seems that often times I lose my discipline as well, and I look back at some days in which I spent too many hours doing unproductive stuff, in a very unorganized manner. And while I sit in front of my computer, I often end up jumping from one task to another, which is a major pain in the butt.

I’m implementing a new initiative for myself to make the most out of my time, and that is to label every single business-related (and some non-business-related) task into my calendar and try to adhere to it. Of course, things come up - having to go to the store to buy something, or the bank, etc. And those variables are a given, but with a schedule written out fully, I am much more likely to follow the routine more than anything else.

For example, I used to just have it in my head, “I’ll do Ted’s ads, and then code for John tomorrow.” That’s not good enough for me anymore - it will all be written down in my calendar to the very hour, including lunch breaks and gym breaks. This is a new thing I am starting as part of my productivity increase plan. I don’t expect to ever achieve 100% adherence. This is more of a self-encouragement and disciplining measure so I don’t waste my time. I am much less likely to sit around or goof off if I have it written in my calendar to perform a certain task between certain hours.

I’ll keep you all posted on how this goes!

As a matter of fact, I’ve dropped out of my Costa Rican side of business. Long story short, there was an ongoing tension. I should have quit in August/September when I was seriously contemplating it, but I couldn’t quite make the move. I ended up killing more time in Costa Rica, wasting more money, and here I am.

I won’t get into the details but it was a lesson learned at a high price.

I am changing my direction again to pursue my design and marketing side of business, and Gary Lee and I will be starting up a website very soon as well. I missed out on the Las Vegas trip as I had to quickly return home only a week after my Costa Rica trip began, and the whole plan of “swinging by” in Vegas didn’t quite happen. Oh well, it happens!

Here’s a quick account of what I missed :

John Chow’s Blogger Dinner
Gary Lee’s Point of View of the Dinner
Danielle’s Adventures
John Chow’s Video Tour of Blog World Expo

My design and marketing business, Synchronous Design & Marketing, will be getting a boost, and I have some plans for Q4 to push for higher revenues and larger operations. Check out our newest project, www.brocksmeaton.com, a top West Vancouver Realtor providing Luxury Waterfront Real Estate.

I’m currently in the market for an online recruitment software system, and the two companies that came to my attention were PC Recruiter, and Taleo. As the volume of our recruitment might be large, we were going to use an off-the-shelf solution (and these are not cheap, open-source software, but rather, expensive professional software) that will offer full integration with existing websites and also with Microsoft Outlook. I contacted both of them via their website and submitted a request for demo runs.

A day or two later, my phone rang at 6 AM. I was woken up, got pissed off, shut my phone off, and went back to sleep. As it turns out, the guy who left me a voicemail was a guy named Scat Orlott (or something like that anyways) from PC Recruiters calling. Later that day, at a comfortable 9AM, came a call from Taleo, which is acceptable.

The idiot guy from PC Recruiter totally lacked the sense of time zones, and it really ticked me off that I was waken up so early.

A few days later, this guy from PC Recruiter called again. It was the same man alright, except this time he called in the afternoon, so I actually answered it. I asked him where he was located, and he answered that he’s from Cleveland, Ohio, which would be 3 hours ahead. I started chewing him up for waking me up the last time he called, and told him he should check time zones before calling. And then he simply hung up on me without even apologizing for his mistake. Here’s how the conversation went.

Me : Oh it’s you. Yeah, last time you called me, you rang my phone at 6AM and fucking woke me up. Where are you guys located?
Scat : Oh, I’m in Cleveland.
Me : Well, I’m in Vancouver and you’re 3 hours ahead.
Scat : I wasn’t aware of that.
Me : You should check your damned time zones before you call next time. Don’t ever wake me up again.
Scat : (Hangs up on me)

Needless to say, PC Recruiter has just lost a lead for a foreign recruitment company, and I am proceeding with the demo process with Taleo with a salesman named Josh.

There’s always the ongoing debate in regards to how to handle one’s debt - especially for business people, not salary earners. If you’re earning salary, well, obviously you shouldn’t get into too much debt. But the other breed, the business people (who make up about 5% of the population) have different ideas when it comes to the whole debt issue. Some of us purposely get into a somewhat heavy debt, and inspire ourselves to pay it off.

This is not some crazy tactic. I’ve heard of many who did this - whether it be a mortgage that they couldn’t afford unless they made more money, or a luxury car, or any other items for that matter. Instead of thinking “Well I’m making this much so I’ll get a Honda.”, these people will say “Well if I’m stuck with a $800/month lease payment for an Audi, I’ll be encouraged to make even more.” and they go that route. It might bite you hard, but it’s definitely a gutsy way of handling it and it sounds quite cool to me.

I haven’t gone as far as going into a luxury car, but I did splurge a little bit when I moved to one of the most prestigious addresses you can have in Vancouver - False Creek North, or Yaletown. My apartment sort of lies in between the two. I have a water view from my living room, and I live very close to many of the great restaurants and parks in the neighbourhood. It wasn’t cheap for me - I had just turned 21 when I first moved. I’m going to be 22 in about a month.

Apart from that I have incurred other debts  - in the first year of my business, I had a slow period and I incurred a lot at that point. If I had lived a bit frugally the whole time, I’d be debt free by now, but I’m not. Instead, I lived up the life a bit, and I have almost the same amount of debt as I had in early 2007, but I have a much better lifestyle now. For example, I’m in the middle of blowing $2,500 on brand new furniture - I already got the couch, and I need to complete payment for my new bed and the mattress. It may sound extravagant for a young guy like me but I like to challenge myself and reward myself.

What’s the right way to handle debt? Play it safe, or play it ballsy like I did?

Each person has 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Well, I do anyways, and if you know of a way to increase that, please let me know - I’ll pawn you my left kidney. Anyhow. I’d like to talk about ways to outsource and to leverage other people’s resources as much as you can in order to make your projects go faster and smoother.

The newest web design contract I have is a broad one that involves a custom-designed CMS (Content Management System) as well as Flash design, multiple file upload systems, as well as Microsoft Live Maps integration.

As I am the project manager, I am in charge of commanding over the whole project and determining who does what and what components to buy. Here’s how the duties got split up between people and purchased software packages.

1. The Design & Concept - The visuals of this website is arguably one of the most important aspects, hence I am in charge of it directly. After all, I’m the one who’s been producing newspaper ad designs and flyer designs for this client over the last 4 months. I have created the Photoshop files that have all the design elements and layers.
2. Flash Design - Flash has been sub-contracted out to my friend Steven Stark, who owns Vancouver Online Media. He did another flash project with me a while ago.
3. Programming of the CMS - That’s my job. Custom PHP programming is one of the things I do well. I also need to take some SEO into consideration. While SEO is not a huge part of this website, I like to make enough effort on it anyways just for the hell of it.
4. Photo Upload - JumpLoader has been selected as the Java App of choice to upload multiple images at once for the content. I definitely was not going to program a whole new multiple-photo upload application using PHP or whatever that wouldn’t even be as good as this JumpLoader gadget. I do have a clear distinction of what stuff I consider to be best custom-programmed and what stuff should be purchased. I personally do not use off-the-shelf CMS’s like Joomla or Mambo - I just use these type of applets and other scripts and fit them into my code to make it all work.
   
5. Photo Cropping - I need another applet for photo cropping - preferrably in Java. Anybody know of anything? I haven’t found much for this yet…
6. HTML/CSS - This is my job once again. This part involves laying out all the Flash pieces, and other elements in order to display the finished product.

So this project has a good distribution between myself, Steven, and other 3rd party applets already developed by other people. This is the best way I found to make a project go smooth and quick, and also utilize the skillsets of other people to my advantage.

This type of sub-contracting as well as applet utilization may sound like obvious points to other web developers out there, but I hope this helps some newbies that are also out there as well. Also, similar concepts can be applied to other emerging businesses. I know it’s hard at first to sub-contract out to other people because you think about the revenue you’re losing, but in the long run this will make things go smoother for you!

By the way, my new company in Vancouver/Costa Rica that handles Design & Marketing is Synchronous Design & Marketing.

I often talk about how to manage time better in business as well as about my business ventures in Costa Rica. Last time I wrote about the importance of using statistics to the best of your advantage to make more informed decisions. Today I’d like to take it back a step to the things we learned in Kindergarten : virtues in business. I remember reading a book titled “All I needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten” and the title hits me well. It’s about the basics. Of course, I will write these in not-very-preschool vocabulary.

1. Reciprocate. Business will be better in the long run if you strive to create a lasting relationship that benefits both parties (or multiple parties involved). Try to make the quick easy buck through cheap methods and you cannot last very long. Even if you do make some dough, how good can you possibly feel about it?
2. Fairness. Be fair. If you feel that the other guy’s getting the stiff end of the stick, take a step back and think about it. At the same time, do not be taken advantage of - if you feel that you’re putting out more than what your compensation is worth, it’s time to re-evaluate.
3. Keep business and personal matters separate. I know a lot of idiotic people who simply cannot do this. They let personal affairs interfere with their business and vice versa. And I’m not perfect - I’m sure I’ve made the mistakes before but I always try to keep them separate.
4. Loyalty. This is a trait I emphasize even more because I am Korean, and loyalty is a big part of our culture. Do not jump ships easily based on hasty decisions, and do not backstab people for immediate gain. Keep things in check. Even if something goes bad or you have negative feelings towards another, do not take it out on them in any vengeful way - it will only diminish your character as a cheap and dirty person and people will lose respect for you. The sense of double-crossed revenge may be satisfying but it’s not worth it at all. And once again - think about how you’ll feel later.
5. Their money is your money. Respecting other peoples’ money - whether you deal with a start-up realtor with limited funds, or with a large corporation with loose cash - always respect their money. Regardless of how much or little they have, treat it the same way and give them their value. I’m not saying there’s something severely wrong with giving discounts to smaller businesses out of pity and also to get their business, but I’m saying that it is wrong to assume a large corporation will blindly pay you out funds that you do not deserve just because they have it. You may fool them once or twice but it won’t last.

Now you guys may understand how I managed to stay in business and grow my business as a self-employed marketing engineer over the last year and 8 months, without doing much marketing at all - just word of mouth is all I have had to rely on and it’s paid off well.