May 16, 2012

When You Talk, Does The Customer Come Out?

If you are like most organizations, you have your own language. Whether you are in the communications business, the law profession, or medicine, over time a vocabulary specific to you is developed and understood by all. The problem is that your unique language is reflective of looking inward to your technology, systems, and operating procedures rather than outward focused on your customers.

If you don’t customerize your language you can hardly say that you are addicted to serving customers in every way possible. The words and music don’t match. In addition behavior can’t change to be outwardly directed to the customer if the internally focused language implies the opposite.

Let me give you a couple of examples to explain what I mean.

Calls Processed. Most organizations have call center operations which typically handle sales and service responsibilities. The productivity objective of most call centers is to process as many calls with as few resources allocated as possible. Other metrics include call speed of answer and average call holding time. The common denominator of this operation is the word CALL. You process CALLS. You answer incoming CALLS as fast as you can. You try and minimize the length of the CALL. Help me understand where the CUSTOMER is in all of this. If a CALL is the focus, with implied productivity measures it is hardly a wonder that taking care of what the customer wants gets lost. Employees are more interested in CALL productivity than dazzling customers. The solution? Get rid of the call processing mentality and get on to the serving customers one. Start talking about the number of customers served; customer wait time and customer serving time.

Customer Commitment. At least the customer is in this expression, but it lacks the personal dimension that is so important in dazzling customers. I like the word promise.Companies make commitments; people make promises. There is much more serving power in Customer Promises than Customer Commitments. The productivity metrics become much more meaningful and visceral under the promises notion. What % of customer promises did you keep? How many promises did you break? Who in the organization is the best at keeping customer promises? WOW! Much more powerful and easy for employees to relate to than the company commitment paradigm.

There are other examples in Chapter Forty-Seven of my book. Check them out.

BE DiFFERENT action plan:
- develop a dictionary of your current language
- identify the word/expressions that you understand but which lack the punch of passionately serving customers
- create customerized words to replace the internal focused ones
- change internal success metrics to reflect your customerized language
- tell employees what you have done and why (to align all systems including language to serve customers)

Cheers, Roy

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Marketing | Permalink
Posted 5.16.12 at 04:13 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment

May 14, 2012

5 Tips to Build Effective Teams

A critical element of Leadership is creating strong teams to get the right things done. Emphasis on “to get the right things done”. Effective teams ARE effective because they have a Leader who has figured out that delivering the RIGHT things is the objective. It’s all about execution.

Here are 5 things to consider:

1. Create your Strategic Game Plan. Your strategy. Engage your team in the process. Let them play an active role in shaping their collective future. Shared visions are more likely to evoke the energy and commitment necessary to execute well. Top- down direction-setting not so much. Shared accountability bonds people together and gives them permission to call on each other when things go off track.

2. Keep it alive. Team flourish when they are winning the battle, so the Leader’s job is to “win a battle every day”. Let everyone know. Share the victory with the team.

3. Bash barriers. Well-oiled teams have a Leader who removes obstacles preventing people from getting things done. Priority 1 is to eliminate the Grunge that fosters inertia and stands in the way of advancement. Effective teams are effective only if they execute well. Be the Chief Barrier Basher for your team.

4. Translate your Strategy. Paint a picture of what it means to the team and each member of it. Effectiveness comes from every team member working in harmony. Everyone moving in the same direction. The Leader’s job is to define roles that eliminate the possibility of dysfunctional activity which gets in the way of progress.

5. Shout out the people and achievements that show that the Game Plan is being successfully implemented.

Effective Teams = Enlightened Leadership = Shared Vision = Brilliant Execution = Shared Accountability

Cheers,
Roy
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Strategy Creation | Leadership | Permalink
Posted 5.14.12 at 05:09 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment

May 11, 2012

BE DiFFERENT: How to Build an Organization to Stand-out NOT Fit-in

Learn and Practice through this One-of-a Kind Executive Workshop Experience with Organizational Leadership Trainer Anders Skoe and Business Author Roy Osing
 

This intimate 1 ½ day Workshop will be held Sept 11 - 12, 2012 in the magnificent setting on Lac d’Annecy, France at l’Abbaye de Talliores

This Workshop is The ONLY learning opportunity available that will engage you to both learn and practice what it takes to differentiate your organization from The Competitive Herd. To stand-out not fit-in. To create remarkable and unique value that cannot be copied. To provide exemplary leadership required to sustain your unmatched competitive position over the long haul.

Anders is a mentor, coach and trainer, in behavioral change. He has worked closely with about 20 000 individuals world-wide. In over 100 different countries he has conducted 4-day workshops in small groups (6 to 15), where participants have represented all nationalities and cultures. He has published four books and several articles on leadership and management behavior.

Roy is a Business Executive, Keynote Speaker, Business Advisor to profit and non-profit organizations, Personal Coach and active Blogger. He is the Author of the groundbreaking new book BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide, which teaches practical and proven ways for organizations to distinguish themselves from the competitive herd and thrive and survive the unforgiving challenges of a chaotic and highly unpredictable marketplace. He actively promotes his work through Workshops, Keynote speaking, Media interviews and Strategic Planning engagements. In addition, Roy regularly publishes Blog Articles on his BE DiFFERENT Practices to help organizations better understand and implement his ideas. Click here for more bio information on Roy.

In the first part of the Program, Roy will step you through his practical and proven BE DiFFERENT Practices which will allow you to leverage the critical functions of Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Customer Service to create Organizational Uniqueness in a world of hungry competitors. If you are looking for the path to BE Remarkable and Indispensable to your customers and leave your competitors in the dust, this Workshop will amaze you.

Anders will then take these organizational imperatives to the Personal Leadership level. He will show you the Leadership traits and behaviors necessary to establish BE DiFFERENT as the way of doing business in your organization.

Here is just a taste of the topics that will be covered:
- Are you DiFFERENT or are you dead? Review BE DiFFERENT Quiz results
- Why Standing-out is critical to organizational survival
- Build a Strategic Game Plan for your organization by simply answering 3 questions
- Craft your ONLY Statement and claim a unique competitive position
- Excel at Execution; don’t get mesmerized by your Plan
- Relevance comes from providing remarkable Value, not flogging products
- Dazzle your Fans and earn their undying loyalty
- It’s about intimate relationships not short term sales
- BE DiFFERENT Leaders: Your role to create and sustain a Gaspworthy organization
- Problem Solving the BE DiFFERENT way
- Finally, for those interested in getting help Implementing the DiFFERENT Practices in their own organizations, Anders and Roy will offer Special Pricing ONLY for Workshop attendees

AND you will have an opportunity throughout the Workshop to apply what you learn. Anders and Roy will step you through practical exercises that will allow you to practice what you have learned and apply it to your own circumstances. More than a one-way process, this Workshop will give you a jump start to introduce BE DiFFERENT back home.

Here are the details:
- The Workshop will be limited to the first 15 attending Executives who register. This small intimate Group will maximize learning not only with Anders and Roy but also with Workshop colleagues
- The Hotel l’Abbaye de Talloires
- Amenities available: Spa, Golf, Boating, Diving and Para-gliding
- More information on the Lac d’Annecy area can be found Here and and Here
- Workshop Cost: 1,000 Euro per person
- ½ the Fee is due on registration; the balance on Sept 14th
- Provisional Bookings are welcome
- Hotel and travel arrangements are the responsibility of each attendee
- Hotel charges are approximately 225 Euro per day which includes breakfast and lunch plus all meeting refreshments
- Workshop commences 1630 hours on Sept 11; ends with lunch Sept 12
- For those who want to stay on and enjoy the area for two more days, we are also offering the one-of-a-kind Inside France Experience, a cool package of French cultural delights. More detail on this later. And it is optional for each Attendee.

For additional information on this ONLY Workshop and to Register, please contact Anders Skoe at anders@skoe.as  and/or Roy Osing at roy@bedifferentorbedead.com

Engagement with YOU | Permalink
Posted 5.11.12 at 05:28 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment

May 10, 2012

Most Winners Are Losers

Major irony: most winners are good at losing. A big Winner is probably a big Loser.

Ever heard of this guy?

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”- Michael Jordan, on his 49th Birthday

What’s the scoop? Winners tend to be great LEARNERS. They do stuff and learn from the results they achieve. Then they do more stuff.
And, as a result they tend to fail alot. You can’t help but fail if you are constantly trying new things and there are few Silver Bullets out there.

It turns out that the absolutely best learning experience is FAILURE. Failing at something offers the greatest opportunity to learn (as long as you don’t make the same mistake twice which would indicate you didn’t learn anything!)

The best learners have more failures under their belt. They fail often and they learn. They apply what lessons they learn from failing. And they Win.

Do you have the guts to fail a lot? If so, you have the critical ingredient to win. And win BIG!

Cheers,
Roy
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Leadership | BE DiFFERENT YOU! | Permalink
Posted 5.10.12 at 05:40 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment