Be Different or be dead

March 7, 2016

Why great leaders on Monday ask “What do our customers crave?”

Source: Unsplash

Why great leaders on Monday ask “What do our customers crave?”

This is the beginning of the stand-out leader’s week (check out my book).

Monday is engage with a customer day.

The first day of your week should be about getting in the face of your customers.

The idea is to choose customers who have been loyal to you. And who generate significant economic value for you today and/or have a high upside for you over the near to medium term.

This is a learning day not a show and tell day. This day is to listen, learn and act on what you hear.

It’s not about presenting who you are and what you do. Nor is it about pitching your products and services.

It’s about opening yourself up to engage and get honest feedback. This day you are in a receive mode not a transmit mode.

It’s also a day to honor the people and organizations that have put their trust and faith in you over the years. To thank them for taking the journey with you when there are so many other alternatives available to them.

This day is anything but a meet and greet day. Today knows no superficiality. No No grinning allowed.

This day is honestly connecting with a customer to get a more intimate understanding of them; to discover their secrets and earn their trust. Their decision to continue to do business with you is at stake. You have to earn their business this day and every day.

▪️Leave your entourage at home. No bagmen should be with you to do the work and make you feel important. It’s just you, your customer and your notebook.

▪️Take copious number of notes. It shows that you think what they have to say is important. Hang on their every word.

▪️Make this an informal event. Don’t make it slick. Have a conversation. Your prime objectives are to deepen relationships, build trust, and learn what you should be doing to serve them better.

▪️Review your ONLY Statement with them. Do they know that you are trying to be remarkable and unique; to be the ONLY ones that do what you do?

Does your ONLY statement address a burning need that they have? Do they believe you live it all day every day?

▪️This day is also about getting feedback from previous meetings you may have had with them. Review your notes from these meetings. Discuss your take-a-ways. Describe the action you took and the results achieved.

Ask for their feedback on your performance.

If you allege that customers are your most valuable asset, shouldn’t you start your week with them?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.7.16 at 04:37 am by Roy Osing
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February 29, 2016

Why biting the dog is the key to leader success

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When a dog bites a man, the world doesn’t suddenly sit up and take notice. After all, dogs unfortunately are known to occasionally bite people.

But when a man bites a dog that’s different. It surprises people. No one expects it. It creates shock value.

It gets noticed and talked about as a bizarre incident.

Organizations today have difficulty carving out a unique and remarkable place for what they do in people’s minds.

They are more common than stand-out.

Their value propositions could be interchanged with their competitors and few would notice any difference.

They all market more to the masses and give little attention to the special needs of the individual.

The majority compete by trying to offer lower prices than their competition because they can’t talk about value differences.

And, driven by the coolness of what technology can do, they push products and services at the market hoping they will resonate with someone.

Winning doesn’t come from being the same as others. It doesn’t result from copying best practices. It doesn’t result from being in the herd.

Success in the face of stiff competition and an unpredictable environment comes from biting the dog — providing value that people want coupled with surprise, outrageousness and noticeability.

Here are 6 ways you can bite the dog.

▪️ Refuse the temptation to go along the path travelled by the crowd;

▪️ Go in the opposite direction to the established practice of the day;

▪️ Do something outrageous that draws an “OMG!” from observers and a disdainful smirk of admiration from traditional pundits;

▪️ Attack order of magnitude change rather than try to achieve modest incremental steps of progress. Go big or go home applies here. Small steps yield unnoticeable acts;

▪️ Invite mountains of criticism from your bite the dog act. The more negative remarks the more free advertising benefits you receive. If no one reacts negatively, you have to wonder if your move was bold enough;

▪️ Study contrarians: those individuals who have a track record of introducing weird creations in the market.

If you want mentors to copy, follow the outlandish ones.

It’s all about attitude.

If you are content to be a member of the herd, so be it.

But if you want to be special and do remarkable things, you have to bite the dog and live with the consequences.

There’s no other way.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 2.29.16 at 07:16 am by Roy Osing
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February 15, 2016

Why the most amazing mentors are super good at failing

Source: Pexels

Why the most amazing mentors are super good at failing.

Why does everyone seem to look for a mentor who is just smart, who has an impressive academic pedigree?

There are so many people willing to offer career guidance. The airwaves are cluttered with opinions and advice.

Everyone’s an expert on something.

Who do you listen to? Who do you believe? Who do you trust? Who do you follow?

And how do you recognize when someone is blowing smoke at you and feeding their own ego?

My advice to you is to be guided by individuals who have had a rich and long career actually doing stuff; lots of stuff.

▪️ People who have demonstrated achievements in the areas that intrigue you;

▪️ People who have implemented successful strategies in an environment of unpredictable and chaotic change;

▪️ People who have failed their way to success in unpredictable market conditions such as the pandemic.

Be wary of those who merely postulate what should be done based on text book doctrine alone.

Theory is not always a trustworthy beacon for what works and what doesn’t work in the real world.

Just because theory says it is the right thing to do doesn’t mean it is. There are too many variables that can never be explained by theoretical doctrine.

Look to people who have been there/done that for guidance; people who have a blemished record of trying things that didn’t always pan out the way they expected them to.

These are people who have learned that a minor portion of theory with a major dose of practicality is the formula for success.

Look for those who have a track record of failure.

Don’t get mesmerized by blue oceans which sound cool on paper and in theory but rarely exist in reality (or if they do, they’re discovered to have been blue after the fact).

They are ‘sorta blue-grey’ or ‘dirty blue-green’ in reality. And they need to be treated as such.

Find someone who is guided by practicality not theory or a cool blue idea.

Find someone who has a stellar record of achievement in a vague world with murky and turbulent coloured oceans.

Who exudes trust.

Who speaks passionately.

Who has winning and failing stories to tell.

Who is a teacher looking for a student willing to learn.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 2.15.16 at 04:37 am by Roy Osing
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February 3, 2016

How your new brand dream can either succeed or die

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How your new brand dream can either succeed or die.

What or who in an organization has the greatest control over your brand?

Why is it disastrous to change your brand without changing your strategy with a new operational support infrastructure?

I’ve sat in board meetings as the EVP of marketing listening to board members pronounce their views on the company’s brand and how it should change to meet changing market conditions.
From the 21st floor, they declare what brand position best serves the organization in terms of the current business plan and the environment as they see it.

Yes, board members should have influence on brand positioning, as should people further down the line in marketing, advertising and public relations — not to mention a plethora of others in the organization who want to join the brand party because it’s fun to be involved.

But let’s be clear: the brand work done by these folks is at best aspirational and bears little resemblance to the impact felt by the brand when implemented and experienced by customers and other stakeholders.
The brand developed by marketing, for example, represents the value proposition that they want communicated in order to meet the marketing objectives involving competitive differentiation and customer value considerations. 

Whether it’s declared by the board or marketing, it’s a paper brand position at this stage — a brave idea only

Because at the end of the day, if an organization can’t deliver on its brand promise, the promise is useless and and is seen as a lie by all who witness it.

The brand stays in the ‘dream’ stage until it’s edited, filtered and tested by all of the practical, operational factors that impact the brand’s efficacy.

In my experience, these are the factors that either reinforce the brand dream or kill it.

▪️The frontline of the organization who engage with demanding customers day-in and day-out with aggressive competitors must believe the brand promise.
They must feel that they can deliver on the promise 24X7, because if they don’t believe, the dream dies;

▪️Operating processes that impact the way customers engage with the organization must support the brand promise. If, for example, the brand promises a friendly future but the internal policies make it cumbersome and difficult for customers to transact with the organization, the promise and delivery collide and the brand lie is borne over and over again. And the dream dies;

▪️Internal rules and policies affecting the customer experience must be in harmony with the brand promise. If the brand promises amazing customer experiences but internal rules force the customer through hoops they don’t like, customers are pissed off, they tell their friends what horrific service is being delivered and the dream dies;

▪️Frontline people must have the personal attitude, life experience and competence to deliver the brand promise day-in and day-out. Rude and uncaring treatment of a customer renders an organization as self-serving and narcissistic with utter disregard for the needs and wants of the people they serve. And the dream dies;

▪️The organization must be cleansed if the grunge and CRAP that gets in the way of employees delivering the brand promise. If frontline people are constantly fighting unnecessary internal roadblocks that get in the way of delivering what customers crave, again, the customer experience suffers and once loyal customers leave for a more friendly environment. And the dream dies;

▪️Frontline emotion and proclivity to serve others must be a huge component in the engagement process if the organization is to maximize the value of the customer experience, and this requires that people with a high EQ - emotional quotient - are recruited into frontline positions. If frontliners don’t illicit goosebumps during the interview process then the wrong person is being hired. And the dream dies.

Changing your lipstick

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

▪️There are many organizations that decide to rebrand themselves without addressing the alignment factors discussed in the previous points — and nothing changes. They create a new identity with a flashy new logo and tag line but the essence of the organization carries on the way it always has. For these organizations, leadership seems to believe that the new logo will miraculously change their performance, but it doesn’t.

They overhaul their web sites with a new look and feel. Advertising messages change stressing an aspect of the organization they feel is now important and nothing changes.
The same operations problems persist; the same employee morale issues remain and competitive vulnerabilities continue despite the fact that how the organization is visually presented to the market has been morphed into something different. And the dream dies.

A brand begins as a dream, conjured up by people intent on finding the best solution to the market challenge they face in a crazy changing environment. And it stays as a dream until leadership creates the infrastructure — the support systems — that makes the brand real.

If they’re not up to the task, the dream dies.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 2.3.16 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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