Be Different or be dead

May 25, 2015

3 simple things you need to know about authentic leadership

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3 simple things you need to know about authentic leadership.

There are no silver bullets to being a stand-out leader, but these 3 moves will get you ahead of the pack.

‘Serve around’ the workplace

Ask ‘How can I help?’, not direct ‘Do this’. Your employees need a champion to make it easier for them to do their job. Be that person. Become a regular fixture with the frontline. Be intimately familiar with their issues and challenges.

Fix the stuff for them that needs fixing. Bash internal barriers. Remove grunge. Eliminate dumb rules. Eradicate bureaucracy.

Make their job easier and they will pay you back 100 times over.

Encourage imperfection

Seeking ‘perfection’ in business is a fool’s game; perfection doesn’t exist. And while you are pursuing this mirage you aren’t moving forward. Your feet aren’t moving.

Better to create a just about right plan and start executing it. Learn what works and doesn’t work. Adjust your direction accordingly.

Leave the ponderers in your wake.

Let your right brain rule

Your employees may intellectual understand something, but that doesn’t determine how they personally FEEL about it. They may understand what the consolidation plan means and the high level benefits it will produce but if it eliminates their job they will likely oppose it.

The lesson for leaders is to move quickly from intellectualizing to feeling when executing change.

What YOU (don’t delegate critical changes) say to employees and how you say it will determine if the change you want to make to enhance shareholder value will actually happen.

Does this sound like Leadership 101?

If you say ‘yes’ you’ve missed the point.

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

• Posted 5.25.15 at 04:56 am by Roy Osing
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May 18, 2015

Small biz leaders are great; here’s 5 reasons why

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Small biz leaders are great; here’s 5 reasons why.

Large and small teams face the same challenges: getting and keeping customers, engaging employees, managing costs and so on. Performance of large vs small, however, is determined by how effective the leader is.

I’m a fan of small business. I admire their passion and commitment.

And their leaders, who can teach the big guys a thing or two.

Here are 5 priceless gifts from small business leaders;

1. Get hands on — Feel the ‘hot breath’ of the customer everyday.

2. Get dirty — Feel what it’s like to do your business with insufficient tools and order fulfilment processes that don’t work the way they should. Follow up on customer complaints and learn how painful it can be.

3. Get in the trenches with the frontline — Take customer calls. Learn what it’s like representing your company to ‘the outside’. Make a point of honouring your frontline folks who succeed despite of the support they typically get from your managers.

4. Deliver value as your personal priority — It’s not about the company, it’s about YOU, and your personal contribution to what your organization delivers to your customers. Don’t delegate it.

5. Be human — And make a fool of yourself.

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

• Posted 5.18.15 at 04:30 am by Roy Osing
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May 11, 2015

3 proven ways to catapult your career out of the herd

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3 proven ways to catapult your career out of the herd.

People with a successful career find a way to separate themselves from others.

Simplify your career planning efforts by using these 3 tactics.

▪️Develop your 24-month career plan: the position(s) you want to have; the organization(s) you would like to target; the influencers in each organization you need to develop a relationship with.

“In 24 months I intend to be Director of Sales with ABC Company” will provide the focus you need to get you going. You will soon know if it the right objective; modify as you learn on the go.

▪️Create your personal ONLY statement; your competitive value proposition that sets you apart from others.
Stop talking about your credentials; start talking about what you do that no one else does.

“I am the only one out there that has the combination of sales and operations experience required to take the sales function to a different level in ANY organization.”

This will earn you the right to have a conversation about how you stand-out from the herd not fit into it.

▪️Gather mentors who can help you achieve your game plan goals. You can’t do it alone.
You need a platform of advice that is relevant to your 24-month plan. Read voraciously to discover friends who can help you with the content they create.

If you covet a marketing position, read and engage with Seth Godin and add him to your resume’.

These 3 actions work. I used them.

Give them a try.

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

• Posted 5.11.15 at 04:12 am by Roy Osing
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May 5, 2015

25 proven ways to be different in business and win

Source: Pexels

25 proven ways to be different in business and win.

Success in business as well as career success are based on the ability to standout from the crowd and deliver value that is unmatched by others.

These 25 proven tactics are critical to creating an organization that is special in the eyes of customers and unmatched by any other in the marketplace.

— If you’re not DiFFERENT you’re dead (or soon will be).

— Stand out = Provide VALUE (an experience, meaning to life) that is RELEVANT (something people CARE about) - and UNIQUE (something that ONLY you provide).

— In school you do well when you follow the rules and fit-in; in business you succeed when you separate yourself from everyone else and stand-out.

— Benchmarking keeps you from being remarkable.

— Stand-out from the best; don’t copy them.

— Create a just about right business plan and execute it flawlessly.

— You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY one that does what you do.

— Execute first; plan second.

— Forget about perfection ; it doesn’t exist.

— Cut the Crap that prevents stuff from getting done.

— Lose the sale, but never lose the relationship with the customer.

— Focus on the critical few things that will achieve 80% of what you want to do; avoid the possible many.

— Amazing customer service means serving people not servicing them.

—The best plan is built on the back of execution; that’s called planning on the run.

—Be good at anticipating; be great at responding.

— Discover customer secrets; customer needs needs are not enough.

— Create experiences for people, don’t flog products at them.

— Service recovery = Screw someone over + Fix it Fast +++ surprise them with what they don’t expect.

— Kill the dumb rules and policies that infuriate your customers.

— Hire people that give you goosebumps; the individuals who tell their story and leave you breathless.

— As a leader, you must serve around, not walk around.

— Stay loose on creating your business plan but be tight and disciplined on implementation.

— (Success) = (Doing) (lots of) (imperfect) (stuff) (fast).

— Great leaders micro-manage “customer moments” - touch points where customer meets organization.

— Spend 80% of your time on execution; the perfect plan is an illusion.

— BE CoNTRARIAN; look for opportunities to do a 180 on what others do.

— Brilliant execution requires not chasing things that could be done, but delivering things that must be done.

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

• Posted 5.5.15 at 12:45 am by Roy Osing
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