Be Different or be dead

June 12, 2023

It makes absolutely no sense to seek ‘inclusion’; here’s why

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It makes absolutely no sense to seek ‘inclusion’; here’s why…

Why would you want to fight to be included in the herd with everyone else?

The current raging narratives on the topic of ‘inclusion’ are baffling to me.

To me, inclusion is just another way of saying you want to be a recognized member of the common herd.

You want the same rights as other herd members.

You want the same protection the herd offers to others.

You want to be accepted by others in the herd.

You feel ‘marginalized’ by a crowd so you want to be a part of it.

Be included in the herd and you will be lost.

This incessant drive by some to ‘break into the crowd’ has more potential negative consequences than it does opportunities for the inclusion members.

Being absorbed by copycats, sameness, common thinking, average performance, ‘acceptable’ norms, standard behaviors, and bland personas doesn’t provide the inclusionist any comfort at all.

Rather it creates an environment ripe with personal risk.

My reader won’t be surprised when I say that successful people strive to separate themselves from the crowd NOT be a part of it.

They look to be different from others in a way people CARE about.

So I find it rather ironic that even though the widespread yearning to be included actually has a huge downside for its advocates, there is screaming demand for it.

Rejoice if you’re already outside the box of sameness.

Look for ways to leverage your unique faction position into an opportunity to further distance yourself from the herd and morph yourself into something even more special than you already are.

Longing to be part of the masses may seem to be a desirable endgame.

But be careful what you wish for.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 6.12.23 at 04:51 am by Roy Osing
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June 5, 2023

One simple way to get salespeople to stop flogging products

Flogging products is disgusting pretty well sums up how I feel about salespeople who try to push the wares of their organization down my throat when I’m looking to get my needs satisfied.

The flogging process is a one-way street where the sales person’s sole objective is to sell the product or service inventory they’ve got.
It’s a supply-dominated process that has little room for customer input; the engagement profile lacks a conversational element with sales listening skills not required.

The customer in the flogging process is a victim of sales abuse.

As I’ve said many times before, in order for an organization to get more value from their sales teams, sales must move from the flogging mode and be charged with and held accountable for a strategic role.

And the singular focus for sales in a strategic role is to build deep strong relationships with customers, not flog products at them.

Relationship-building is not a WHAM! BAM! affair, it’s a long term process because trust with another person isn’t achieved overnight.
It takes deliberate actions on the part of the salesperson to develop a rapport and establish credibility with the customer so that they earn the right to transact with them at some point down the road.

Effective mutually beneficial relationship-building results in sales transactions but patience and commitment is required of the salesperson to make it happen.

Why don’t we see much relationship-building from sales today?

It’s simple, really. The compensation plan for sales is short term—annual—and it’s based on the number of products sold (or revenue from products or services).
And as we know, sales are driven by how they get paid. If their bonus is based on achieving annual product sales they will do whatever it takes to get their bonus and will ignore other aspects of their role.

They won’t devote time to relationship-building and they won’t make it a priority to develop the skills necessary to get better at it.

They will continue to flog products because that’s what they get paid to do.

So, how do we get sales to change and take on the relationship-building role?

It’s simple, really.

Change the sales compensation plan and you’ll change sales behaviour.

The issue becomes how do you change sales compensation from a short term product focus to a long term relationship one?

Here are some practical steps I took in my role of president of a startup I took to A BILLION IN SALES:

#1. Communicate the change

It’s extremely important that the shift from product selling to relationship building be communicated to salespeople in terms of why the change is being made.
The critical strategic role of sales should be emphasized along with the new behaviours expected to replace the traditional approach.

Sales leadership must be front and center in the communications process; everyone in sales needs to hear from the leader what action is being taken and why it’s critically important.

Communications elements to stress:

— flogging products is no longer the accepted way.
— long term value to the organization is created through deep customer relationships.
— competitive advantage is achieved by having more loyal customers than the competition.
— the only way to make the shift is to change the way salespeople are compensated.
— the compensation plan will be changed in a number of steps.
— the plan will (as described below) be launched as a trial.

#2. Design the initial plan

The pivot from a product-centric compensation plan to a relationship plan shouldn’t be attempted in one step, to be successful it should be implemented in a series of steps.

The end game of the change should be to have at least 50% of the sales bonus attributable to relationship building, so design the plan in a number of steps to get you there.

I suggest designing the new plan in 3 steps over a 3-year period:

Step 1 - product sales (80%); relationship-building (20%).
Step 2 - product sales (70%); relationship-building (30%).
Step 3 - product sales (50%); relationship-building (50%).

The 3-year migration period is important in order to learn how the new plan is working as well as allowing for revisions along the way.

#3. Develop customer questionnaire

How well a salesperson builds customer relationships should be judged by the customer, therefore a vehicle to get customer input is required.

In my experience, a simple questionnaire is the way to go. It needs to be brief, covering the elements of relationship-building the organization deems appropriate.

As a sales leader, these were the traits I expected every salesperson to demonstrate; they were included in the monthly questionnaire—Sales Report Card—we had customer’s complete on their sales rep:

#1. Responsiveness: how quickly do they respond to a customer request?
#2. Follow-up: do they take action to ensure the customer’s need was satisfied?
#3. Communication: is the sales rep in regular communication with the customer?
#4. Solutions Orientation: is the sales rep focused on understanding the customer’s problems and finding solutions to them?
#5. Proactiveness: does the sales rep proactively offer solutions to the customer without being asked?

Obviously, the exact Report Card elements should be crafted to meet your organization’s specific requirements but these 5 I found to be very effective.
In addition, I reviewed them every year to determine if they needed to be tweaked based on customer and sales rep feedback.

#4. Trial the plan

Launch Step 1 of the plan as a trial so people understand that it’s not being ‘shoved down their throats’ and that learning on the run is the way the plan will be managed.

The objectives of the trial should be clearly communicated and there should be regular reports on how well the trial is achieving its intended outcomes.
Sales reps should be featured in the communications roll-out, providing a running commentary on how well the trial is going.

#5. Launch the final plan

Finally, after the 1-year trial period is over, launch the plan in its final version incorporating all the learning obtained from the trial design.

My experience was that if the trial period was robust in terms of communications and revisions based on customer and sales rep feedback, the launch of the final version of the plan won’t be a big deal.

After 12 months of living with the concept and seeing it tweaked along the way, the surprise factor associated with the permanent version is normally zero with minimum roadblocks to implementation.

But make sure people understand that the plan will be reviewed annually with modifications based on their feedback.

Final word

You don’t affect a change from a product flogging sales culture to building strong customer relationships by declaring the intent to do so; a disciplined process must be put in place to make it happen.

If the sales performance scorecard I’ve given you here is put in place, I guarantee you will not only strengthen sales’ strategic role, you will also solidify the currency you have with your customers who will love you for the pivot you’ve made.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 6.5.23 at 06:20 am by Roy Osing
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May 8, 2023

4 exciting breakaway moves to leave ‘the herd of sameness’

4 exciting breakaway moves to leave ‘the herd of sameness’.

The herd of sameness.
The undifferentiated mass where everyone’s the same.
Where compliance rules.
Where conformity reigns supreme.
Where risks are avoided.
Where no one stands out.
Where commonness and average describe its constituents.
Where momentum from the past defines its direction.
Where innovation is missing in action.

What I mean by ‘breakaway’.

▪️divergence.
▪️radical change,
▪️sudden attack or movement,
▪️’violent’ exit away from the herd.

For those of you who have followed my work—books, blogs, podcasts—you know that I advocate choosing a journey that others don’t.

Finding a way forward that serves others in ways that others don’t.
Discovering your ‘sweet spot’ in a world where copying runs rampant and originality is a lost art.

Some might say that’s what ‘pivoting’ is all about.

No it’s not.

A pivot is a change of direction from the past. It’s an incremental move away from past momentum. It’s a shift making use of the competencies that have been developed in the past.

A breakaway move is disruptive.

It reinvents the playing field by virtue of the move you make. It dismisses the past in terms of reliance and usefulness; it isn’t used to inform the future.

I took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES by creating these 4 breakaway moves intended to create something NEW that could drive miraculous performance.

Move #1. BE DiFFERENT!

▪️Don’t COPY.
Copying what others do keeps you in The herd of sameness. Look for ways to CREATE, not copy. Purge ‘best in class’ from your vault of business tools.

▪️Avoid CLAPTRAP.
Stop thinking of yourself as faster, better, best, leader or #1.

“We provide the best customer service.” is pure conjecture offered by the company spewing the words.

Start thinking of how you can become The ONLY One that does what you do in satisfying what is compelling and relevant for people.

▪️Shed ASPIRATIONS.
Ground yourself when it comes to defining what makes you special. A helium-filled 10,000-foot aspirational declaration doesn’t help convince people to do business with you.

“We are in business to save our home planet” may make the organization feel good about itself, but it does little to make it perfectly clear why they, and no one else, should have your business.

The ONLY Statement puts precision to your promise. It’s clear, measurable and understandable. It’s your Ground Zero.

Move #2. EXECUTE!

Academics and other so-called ‘experts’ have convinced us that the strategy is the critical element of high performing organizations.
They preach that the Plan must be elegant—by using their quantitative toolset—and it must be ‘perfect’—by accurately predicting the outcome of the Plan.

As a result, we spend 80% of our time trying to get the Plan absolutely ‘right’ in an imperfect world with stochastic events relentlessly bombarding us.

Stop! My experience in marching to A BILLION is that EXECUTION is the planning element that needs more attention than the Plan itself.

Get the Plan ‘just about right’ and execute it flawlessly is the real prescription for unbelievable performance.

My Strategic Game Plan is based on the view that a perfectly workable Plan is to ‘head west’.

Start executing. Learn from how well you’re executing. Learn from any unpredictable events—‘body blows’—that have rocked you. Adjust the Plan. Keep executing.

Move #3. SERVE!

Actually, the leadership herd of sameness is large and growing.

Most leaders are rote practitioners. They follow the leadership pedagogy promulgated by theorist academics and HR pundits who all espouse the same fundamentals.

Tactics of leadership are encouraged as the things leaders should do in order to transform themselves into ‘great’ leaders.

And so, tactics dealing with communications, delegation, team building, planning and others rain down on the leadership crowd with everyone getting washed with the same soap.

This is a BIG problem in my view.

Tactics should always be informed by strategy; tactics without strategic context serve no productive purpose other than satisfying the ‘expert’ pushing the tactics under their definition of ‘the right thing to do’.

My leadership guide was always to enhance the ability of the organization to EXECUTE! our Strategic Game Plan pristinely and hence improve performance and results ever higher.

My prime focus was to embed myself in the workplace—I call it ‘Leadership by SERVING Around (LBSA)—asking one simple question: “How can I help?”

The ‘gold’ I discovered from my breakaway move for the most part was what had to be done to remove the mud and grunge in the organization that was preventing effective execution: ‘dumb’ rules, policies, processes, systems and procedures that didn’t enable strategy execution, they prevented it.

Drawing a direct Line of Sight for people between their specific job responsibilities and the strategy was another SERVING Leadership role I played. Simple reason why it was important: if people understood exactly what they had to do to effectively execute the strategy, chances are their actions would deliver the strategic outcomes expected.

LBSA didn’t make me a ‘better’ leader, it made me a DiFFerENT leader from everyone else in ways which were required to drive performance through the roof as we marched to A BILLION IN SALES.

Move #4. DO-IT-YOURSELF!

There are certain tasks that should be delegated, but there are also some things the leader should do themselves regardless of what the books say.

’Strategic Micromanagement’ is my way of describing the fact that certain tasks associated with the execution of the organization’s strategic imperatives should be owned by the leader. No delegation. Period!

Audacious breakaway leaders NEVER delegate the stuff relating to the execution of their strategy.

These are some of the actions I took personally.

▪️ I ‘put my fingerprints’ on architecting ‘The Customer Moment’, the customer engagement process required to deliver amazing service experiences. Defining the behaviors required to ‘dazzle’ a customer were led by me. I took on the job of ensuring the organization knew what ‘Moments’ looked like, and trained everyone to deliver them.

▪️ Selling the organization’s Strategic Game Plan to employees was MY responsibility. I didn’t delegate it to anyone. It was my way of hearing first hand what people thought of the journey we decided to take and what they needed to fulfill it.
I had to answer the tough questions about why we chose the path we were on and how we were going to be successful.

▪️ I took on the role of ‘Strategy Hawk’ for my organization. It was my personal responsibility to monitor how effectively our strategy was being implemented and what remedial actions had to be taken to get us back on track when our results strayed from objectives.

▪️ I personally participated in the recruitment process for frontline managers and, on occasion, frontline employees as well. Panel interviews were held with potential candidates and I played an active role asking questions and selecting who got the job.

My objectives were twofold: first, to ensure that people in positions ‘close to customers’—I consider the frontline manager to be one of the most important positions in any organization—had the right Leadership By Serving Around skills and attributes and, second, to model the interview dynamics—questions and probing—for the other managers in the room.

Frontline people are key to executing a strategy; I wanted my fingerprints on the frontline recruitment and selection process.

Conclusion

Inertia plagues the ability of organizations and individuals to achieve superlative levels of performance which can only be achieved by a desire to breakaway from the momentum of the past.

My breakaway roadmap worked for me, and I guarantee it will work for you if you trust it.

✔️ BE DiFFERENT!
✔️ EXECUTE!
✔️ SERVE!
✔️ DO-IT-YOURSELF!

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 5.8.23 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing
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May 1, 2023

Why being imperfect FAST! is the secret to amazing business growth

Why being imperfect FAST! is the secret to amazing business growth.

Imperfection is the engine of innovation—trying different things. And in my experience perfection—however defined—is not needed to win.

We didn’t get to a BILLION in annual sales by being perfect in the classical sense. Check out the audacious ways we got there.

While you’re intellectually seeking perfection, you’re not DOING anything!

Pondering perfection is an excellent way to do nothing and fail.

You need to create your own version of perfection, that will be the solution—inelegant and messy probably—that works for you.

— What do you mean when you say a business needs to imperfect ‘FAST’?

Rarely does anyone achieve unbelievable success after one attempt; they will seldomly ‘get it right the first time’.

You will have to make many ‘tries’ before landing on something new that will work.

Failure is an essential ingredient of innovation. So ‘fail a lot’ is a strategic imperative.

Success depends on the number of tries you make (so many variables at play in a highly complicated and unpredictable world), which means that making many tries FAST is essential.

— How does being imperfect FAST make an organization different?

Because it leads to more innovation. A constant stream of tries will eventually create something truly special that raises performance to astonishing heights.

An ‘imperfect FAST’ culture sets the organization apart from others who are stuck in the ‘perfection seeking mode’ and making little progress.

It inspires employees so an adaptive organization culture is nurtured.

— What are the benefits of being imperfect FAST?

▪️It aids in the execution of your strategy.
▪️It ‘keeps your feet moving’, on your toes to take a turn when your plan isn’t working out the way you want.
▪️It avoids the impossible task of taking copious amounts of time seeking a solution that doesn’t exist—perfection.
▪️It effectively prepares you to deal with uncertainty and unpredictable change.
▪️It feeds the innovation organizational value. You can’t be innovative with the belief you can find a silver bullet that will miraculously do the job for you.
It doesn’t exist.

Speed is a competitive advantage.

▪️First mover advantage with imperfection makes you standout and puts you ahead of the herd.

— What actions can an organization take to be imperfect FAST?

✔️ Leaders must declare that it’s ok to be imperfect. That the number of ‘tries’ is the innovation journey that will define ultimate success.
✔️ Embed ‘tries’ in performance plans. Everyone should be expected to try new things. Trying must define the culture of the organization.
✔️ Celebrate ’triers’ constantly. What a great way to make trying matter. Have fun with it. Recognize trying heroes.
✔️ Create an ‘Imperfectionist Club’. I’m thinking the ‘Cult of Triers’ would be an excellent way to kick this journey off. Start small and build the cult to include the entire organization.

In a world of imperfections, why do we constantly try to be perfect?

Doesn’t make sense to me.

Want to stand out from the crowd and win?

Be imperfect FAST!

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 5.1.23 at 06:56 am by Roy Osing
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