February 5, 2005

YOUR. SAMENESS. PROBLEM.

🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week

YOUR. SAMENESS. PROBLEM.

Your competitors aren’t your biggest business problem. Your lack of differentiation is.
When your products, service and marketing look like everyone else’s, you give customers little reason to choose you beyond price.
Becoming The ONLY One™ starts with discovering what your chosen customers crave and building your business around delivering it.

Your sameness is yours to fix.

🐑 You Don’t Have a Competition Problem. You Have a Sameness Problem.

Why do so many businesses fail to stand out in insanely competitive markets?

They blame competition.

Too many competitors. Too much noise. Too many choices. Too much pressure on price.

I don’t buy it.

Most organizations don’t disappear into the competitive crowd because there are too many competitors.

They disappear because they behave too much like them.

🐑 They study the Herd

Businesses are obsessed with what everyone else is doing.

They benchmark.

Study “best in class.”

Attend conferences where competitors share their latest thinking.

Read the same textbooks.

Hire consultants trained in the same methodologies.

Then they wonder why customers can’t tell them apart.

You can’t study the Herd and expect to escape it.

The more energy you spend copying what successful competitors do, the more likely you are to become another version of them.

That’s not differentiation.

That’s sameness with a different logo.

🗑️ They drown in claptrap

Then there’s the language.

“Quality.”

“Integrity.”

“Excellence.”

“Customer focused.”

“Innovative.”

Seriously?

These aren’t differentiators.

They’re aspirations every organization claims.

They’re corporate claptrap.

And much of it is narcissistic.

It’s about what the organization wants to say about itself rather than what the people it has chosen to serve actually CRAVE.

Customers don’t care about your adjectives.

They care about what you can do for them that nobody else does.

🎯 DiFFERENT has to matter

Being different just for the sake of being different is useless.
The objective isn’t to be weird.

It’s to create something relevant and unique for the WHO you have chosen to serve.

What do they CRAVE?

What can you deliver that your competitors don’t?

What can you become The ONLY One™ to provide?

That’s the work.

Not becoming “better.”

Not becoming “best.”

Becoming The ONLY One™ who does what you do to deliver what your chosen customers crave.

STOP STUDYING YOUR COMPETITORS AND START STUDYING YOUR CUSTOMERS

Take your current differentiation statement and ask one brutal question:
“Could one of our competitors say exactly the same thing?”

If the answer is yes, throw it out.

Then get close to your WHO.

Discover what they CRAVE.

And create something competitors aren’t already doing.

Don’t compete harder inside the Herd.

Escape it.

🚀 Want more Audacious Moves™?

🎙️ Listen to Audacious Moves to a BILLION™ for practical, contrarian ideas for building an extraordinary business.

✍🏻 Explore more articles, ideas and proven tools at BE DiFFERENT or be dead.

Extraordinary businesses aren’t built by ordinary decisions.

They’re built one Audacious Move™ at a time.

Now go make yours.

Cheers,
Roy

• Posted 2.5.05 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

February 4, 2005

MEETINGS. STARVE. EXECUTION.

🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week

MEETINGS. STARVE. EXECUTION.

Strategy execution suffers when leaders spend more time discussing the plan than putting it to work.
Want business growth? Stop letting meetings eat the time your strategy needs to deliver results.
Spend 20% creating it—and 80% executing, learning and adjusting.

Most organizations have strategy backwards.

They spend months analyzing, debating, planning and polishing.

Then they wonder why nothing much changes.

Here’s the Audacious Move™:

Spend 20% of your time creating your strategy—and 80% executing it.

That’s where insanely amazing results come from.

🚀 Strategy Doesn’t Create Results. Execution Does.

Strategy matters.

You need to know where you’re going, who you intend to serve, what they crave and how you intend to compete and win.

But strategy by itself produces nothing.

Execution turns strategic intent into business results.

Get your Strategic Game Plan™ “just about right” and MOVE.

You can’t predict everything.

Markets change. Competitors surprise you.

Customers behave differently than expected.

That’s why execution is so important.

🔥 Execution Teaches You What Planning Never Can

Execution isn’t simply implementing your strategy.

It’s how you make your strategy better.

Execute.

Learn.

Adjust.

Execute again.

That’s BE Imperfect FAST™.

Every customer reaction tells you something.

Every competitive response tells you something.

Every failure tells you something.

Every unexpected success tells you something.

Execution teaches you what planning never can.

⚡ Stop Worshipping the Perfect Plan

The market doesn’t reward the organization with the most elegant 50-page strategy.

It rewards the organization that executes relentlessly, learns faster and adjusts sooner.

And execution isn’t something leaders can simply hand off.

They need to create a clear Line of Sight™ between strategy and execution so everyone understands how what they do contributes to the game plan.

Great leaders also make strategy execution a personal leadership priority.

Get your direction right.

Get your plan “just about right.”

Then GO.

🚀 The Audacious Move™

Stop polishing your strategy.

Put the 20/80 discipline to work.

20% Strategy. 80% Execution.

Execute. Learn. Adjust.

Then execute again.

The winning strategy isn’t the one you perfect before you execute.

It’s the one you perfect because you execute.

🚀 Want more Audacious Moves™?

🎙️ Listen to Audacious Moves to a BILLION™ for practical, contrarian ideas for building an extraordinary business.

✍🏻 Explore more articles, ideas and proven tools at BE DiFFERENT or be dead.

Extraordinary businesses aren’t built by ordinary decisions.

They’re built one Audacious Move™ at a time.

Now go make yours.

Cheers,
Roy

• Posted 2.4.05 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

February 3, 2005

CONFORMITY. CANCELS. CHOICE.

🚀 Audacious Move of the Week

CONFORMITY. CANCELS. CHOICE.

Conformity in business kills competitive differentiation, weakens customer loyalty and stalls business growth.
When you copy competitors and worship industry best practices, you give customers more of what they already have.

Growing your business demands a difference your chosen customers CRAVE—and a reason to choose you they can’t get anywhere else.
Conformity cancels that reason—and leaves you fighting over price.

🐑 The crowd already has enough members.

Everyone says customers have more choice than ever.

More suppliers. More products. More offers.

But look closer.

The same promises dressed in different colours.

The same processes wearing different logos.

The same “customer first” language supporting the same bloody obstacles.

Plenty of options. Precious little meaningful choice.

Conformity feels comfortable.

Follow industry practices.

Match competitors.

Do what’s normally done.

Then a customer asks:

“Why should I choose YOU?”

Better service? Great people? A commitment to excellence?

Your competitors say those things, too.

You’ve handed customers the job of figuring out your difference.

That’s YOUR job.

And when they can’t find a meaningful difference, price becomes an easy way to decide.

Before blaming customers for being price obsessed, ask yourself:

Have we earned a preference—or merely submitted a price?

🎯 Discover what your chosen customers CRAVE.

Being different just to be different is a non-starter.

A bizarre campaign or flashy feature means nothing if the people you want to serve don’t CARE.

Start with WHO you’ve chosen to serve to deliver your growth.

Then dig into what they DESIRE.

What would make them feel understood? What frustration do they desperately want removed? What experience have they stopped expecting anyone to deliver?

CRAVINGS live in emotion and feelings.

Customers might need an answer. They CRAVE the relief of someone taking ownership without making them explain the problem to five different people.

There’s something you can build a meaningful difference around.

☝️ Craft your ONLY. Deliver it.

Turn that discovery into a draft ONLY Statement™:

“We are the ONLY ones who…”

Complete it with something your chosen customers care about and your competitors can’t credibly claim.

Then execute.

Your ONLY Statement™ creates an obligation.

If you promise personal ownership, someone must own the customer’s problem through to resolution.

If approval rules prevent that, change them.

If performance measures reward passing customers along, change those, too.

Turn differentiation from a strategy into an operating principle.

Customers should experience your ONLY without having to read it.

⚡ Cancel one act of conformity this week.

Pick one moment where customers get the same experience from you as everywhere else.

Ask:

▪️ What do our chosen customers CRAVE here?

▪️ Which copied practice prevents us from delivering it?

▪️ What will we change—and who owns execution?

Make the change. Watch what happens. Listen. Tweak it on the run.

That’s how you become MORE relevant and move toward becoming The ONLY One™.

Give customers something they CARE about that they can’t get from anyone else.

Now they have a reason to choose.

🚀 Want more Audacious Moves™?

🎙️ Listen to Audacious Moves to a BILLION™ for practical, contrarian ideas for building an extraordinary business.

✍🏻 Explore more articles, ideas and proven tools at BE DiFFERENT or be dead.

Extraordinary businesses aren’t built by ordinary decisions.

They’re built one Audacious Move™ at a time.

Now go make yours.

Cheers,
Roy

• Posted 2.3.05 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

February 2, 2005

PERFECT. NEVER. EXECUTES.

🚀 Audacious Move of the Week

PERFECT. NEVER. EXECUTES.

Business strategy execution—not perfect strategic planning—is what separates organizations that achieve extraordinary growth from those that merely talk about it.

Stop trying to perfect your strategy.

Start making it work.

Business leaders have an unhealthy obsession with creating the perfect strategy.

They hire consultants. Commission research.
Hold planning retreats. Debate assumptions.

And then do it all over again.

Meanwhile, competitors are stealing their customers.

PERFECTION IS A TRAP.

It seduces leaders into believing more planning produces better results.

It doesn’t.

🎯 Get It Just About Right™

What’s is a perfect strategy anyway?

Perfect according to whom?

A consultant? A professor? Someone who hasn’t grown a business to a BILLION in the real world?

My Strategic Game Plan™ focuses on four questions:

* HOW BIG? Your 24-month revenue ambition.
* WHO to SERVE? The Customer Groups capable of delivering it.
* WHAT do they CRAVE? The desires and emotions driving their choices.
* HOW to COMPETE and WIN? Become The ONLY One™.

Answer these questions.

Get your plan Just About Right™.

Then get on with it.

⚡ Be Imperfect FAST™

Here’s where most organizations screw up.

They create a strategy and assume execution will magically happen.

It won’t.

You must bake differentiation into how your organization operates.

Into decisions. Processes. Employee behaviour. Customer experiences.

Turn differentiation from a strategy into an operating principle.

And forget flawless execution.

That’s another perfection trap.

My approach is Be Imperfect FAST™.

EXECUTE. LEARN. ADJUST.

Execute before everything is figured out.

Learn what works.

Adjust.

Repeat.

That’s how strategies get more effective in achieving results.

👊 Leaders Ride the Execution™

Leadership doesn’t end when the strategy is approved.

It BEGINS.

Create Line of Sight™ so everyone understands their contribution.

Remove barriers.

And when circumstances change, Call the Audible™.

Change the play. Not the destination.

Execution is a PEOPLE game.

Not a PowerPoint exercise.

💥 Your Audacious Move This Week

Pick ONE strategic decision you’ve been debating forever.

DO SOMETHING.

Test it. Learn. Adjust.

Move your ONLY Statement™ closer to reality.

Stop polishing.

Start executing.

🏆 The BILLION Dollar Lesson

We didn’t build a startup into a $1 BILLION business by chasing perfection.

We had a clear direction and executed relentlessly.

We learned. Adjusted. Kept moving.

An imperfect strategy brilliantly executed beats a brilliant strategy poorly executed.

Every. Single. Time.

PERFECT PLANS DON’T GROW BUSINESSES.

RELENTLESS EXECUTION DOES.

🚀 Want more Audacious Moves™?

🎙️ Listen to Audacious Moves to a BILLION™ for practical, contrarian ideas for building an extraordinary business.

✍🏻 Explore more articles, ideas and proven tools at BE DiFFERENT or be dead.

Extraordinary businesses aren’t built by ordinary decisions.

They’re built one Audacious Move™ at a time.

Now go make yours.

Cheers,
Roy

• Posted 2.2.05 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink