I first fell in love with the BPO industry in 2004 when I was head-hunted by a contact centre in Cape Town who wanted to grow their current capacity through the services of a savvy and fired up Customer Relationship Manager and Business Developer.

I left the advertising media publishing space and enthusiastically proceeded to immerse myself in all things BPO & O. I was lucky that I had the opportunity to cut my teeth with Calling-The-Cape, the body organisation that looked after the BPO & O industry in Cape Town at the time. It has since consolidated and is operating as Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPeSA).

They took me under their wing and I learned to sell the value proposition of South Africa as an outsourcing destination by assisting with representing our country on their stand at the annual Birmingham BPO & O show. Additional services of formulating and developing business development processes for Calling-the-Cape afforded me a plethora of wealth, knowledge and practical skills within the industry as well as my work with my employee contact centre within my designated roles.

Management Consulting Journey Begins

After filling the excess capacity at the contact centre I felt it was time to launch out on my own and identified a gap in the space for a specialist consulting firm in 2006, servicing contact centres with business development, marketing strategy, contract acquisition and client relationship management services.

10 years later I find I am still in my “honey- moon phase” and with Joie de Vivre I live to network, create, develop and implement marketing and business strategy for contact centres. Eternally fascinated by the transformation powers of technology and the inter-relation and connectedness of man and machine I see no objects, only relationships in the work I do.

After being notified about his retrenchment, Clint decided to start his own contact centre business. It was a big jump to move from a secure and comfortable monthly salary – to not knowing what each month had in store! Clint started AskOsca with only 3 seats, and decided to run a campaign to access markets in the USA.

Within 5 years AskOsca grew into a 60 seater call centre accessing markets across the United Kingdom, United States of America, European Union and Australia.

AskOsca is currently one of South Africas leading international outsourced business centres. It took Clint 5 years to build his business, and he shares the lesson he learned along the way with others who have the same entrepreneurial spirit.

“Never give up – you never know how close you are! My big break in the BPO industry came when I was retrenched from the company I worked for.”

“Even with the financial uncertainty, I was in heaven. My fire and focus were on full blast again. I had complete control over what I was doing. I could implement whatever I wanted to and drew from my experience and my belief in AskOsca.
That 3 seater call centre was the blank canvas for the success we are enjoying today.”

Clint’s advice to start-ups and young entrepreneurs

Don’t chase the money. That’s the biggest mistake people make. My goal was always to develop people and help improve their lives. If you do that well, then money will follow. Money has six legs, we’ve only got two – how dare we think we can catch it? What you put out there will come back to you. Focus on productivity and do that well, and you’ll get good commission. Design processes in the business to suit the customer and look after your staff, without them you are nothing.

Clint’s business strategy

I have a very simple strategy – I employ people from my immediate vicinity, train and develop them. My neighbour on my left works for me, my neighbour on my right works for me, my neighbour across the road works for me, people two avenues away from me work for me. The best part of it is that they are never late for work. There are no transport issues. There are other companies out there, but I pay my people exactly the same. My staff saves on transport cost, they can spend more time with their families in the morning and evening because they are not sitting in traffic. My staff attrition rate is very low as a result. This strategy is one of my biggest USPs when I try selling business to other clients, because they want people to be happy at work, on time and highly efficient.

How OskOsca finds business

I get most of my business through social media and contacts in the industry. Maintaining good relations with clients is paramount. The operations director of Nursing 2000, one of our UK-based clients, was a contact centre agent I trained in 2005 at the Dialogue Group. He reached out to me after seeing our social media marketing campaign. Today he is a client. Staying in touch with contacts help.

To read the full interview with Clint, click here: Invest Cape Town

Send your answer to: win@careerplanet.co.za 

The FOREWORD of SUPER FIRED-UP & FOCUSED was written by Alan Winde (MMP):

“Research has shown that the majority of small businesses in South Africa fail within the first year – securing them membership in Sir Richards Branson’s club of first failures.

AskOsca became a success, purely because Clint did not allow those first, difficult months in business to deter him. The goal was to take his product to market, and even though he had to return to the drawing board a few times, he got there.

Life is a succession of choices. By acknowledging that we are human and will, therefore, fail at some point, at any given time, we allow ourselves the freedom to try again. By choosing not to give up, we choose to succeed. So, as a message to fellow South Africans:
“When someone is brave enough to risk and fail, celebrate the effort by congratulating them on the guts and determination displayed rather than ridicule the process. The support of others is a crucial ingredient for success.”

You can buy your own copy of SUPER FIRED-UP & FOCUSED from Amazon.com or Exclusive Books