December 23, 2020

Wacky Wednesday: Why “Dumb Rules” Committees Should Rule The World

Wacky Wednesday: Why “Dumb Rules” Committees Should Rule The World

Let’s talk about the silent killers of customer love and operational brilliance: Dumb Rules.

You know the ones—those head-scratching policies that make zero sense, frustrate everyone, and exist only because “that’s how it’s always been done.” 🤦‍♂️🔗

Dumb Rules are customer control mechanisms disguised as order.

Need a 12-step approval process to refund $10? That’s a Dumb Rule.

Require customers to fax a form in 2025 to cancel a subscription? Dumb Rule.

Force people to repeat their life story to five different agents just to get help? You guessed it—Dumb Rule. 😤

These aren’t just minor annoyances—they’re loyalty assassins.

They derail strategy, drain morale, and drive customers straight into the arms of your competitors.

But here’s the audacious idea: What if we formed “Dumb Rules Committees” and let them run the show? 🔍

Imagine a cross-functional team—with real power—whose sole mission is to hunt down and obliterate every useless, tone-deaf, customer-hostile rule in the company.

Their mantra? “If it annoys people, it’s gone.” Their tool? Customer direction. Their goal? Liberation. ✊

This isn’t about being rule-less; it’s about being rule-smart.

Rules should enable, not encumber.

They should make things easier, faster, and more human—not slower, clunkier, and more robotic. 🤖

Hold leaders accountable.

Measure managers not by how many policies they enforce, but by how many they eliminate in favor of customer enablement.

Celebrate the destruction of Dumb Rules like you celebrate hitting targets—because honestly, it’s just as important.

When you kill a Dumb Rule, you don’t just remove friction—you unleash potential.

You free your team to focus on what matters: creating WOW 😮 moments, not wrestling with red tape.

So start today.

Gather your rebels.

Arm them with markers and whiteboards.

Let them question everything.

Your customers—and your bottom line—will thank you. 🙌❤️

Happy Wacky Wednesday. Go find a Dumb Rule… and kill it with fire. 🔥😎

If you’re tired of the coddling and crave more unfiltered takes, subscribe for weekly doses of uncomfortable truths.

Cheers,
Roy
My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION shares the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Unheard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 12.23.20 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

December 23, 2020

How to make virtual events work for your business

Source: Pexels

As humans, we’re wired to spend the first part of our lives trying to fit in, only to figure out that the magic of what we have to offer is in the things that make us stand out.

Sameness is safe. The brain is wired to notice anomalies because they may be dangerous. But they also make life more interesting.

If a continuous tone drones on for a while, you’ll just tune it out. But, change the pitch or volume, and the brain snaps alert. In psychology, that’s called the orienting reflex, and it helps us stay alive.

As in biology, so in life… and business.

This is particularly true of the event-planning business.
In this unprecedented time, we’ve all been violently shaken out of our normal: face-to-face has flipped into screen-to-screen.
The time is ripe to start using virtual events to get your message out.
So, how do you make a virtual event work for you?

Why choose virtual events?

Before we go into how you can leverage them, let’s look at why virtual events present an opportunity for your business.

Virtual events may be the new kids on the block when it comes to marketing, but they have been gaining in popularity since long before the pandemic outbreak. Why?

Virtual events are more budget-friendly and accessible to wider audiences, with no geographical limitations. They are not dependent on the venue, the weather, refreshments, or other factors that require serious consideration in regular event planning.

All this doesn’t mean you should just wing it. You’re responsible for providing your attendees with the most value possible, while reaping the biggest benefits for your business.

Online networking and forming a community

Having a community has never been more important than it is now, and communities that form around virtual events will become a lifeline for many businesses that choose to adapt.
What learns and adapts lives on. What doesn’t, withers and dies.
In your community, you and your partners can find solutions together, bound by a common goal, interest, or need.

The benefit of a community is support. You don’t have to know everything, as long as you have a relationship of mutual respect with someone who has the skills that help you achieve your goals.

Combined effort built civilizations, and it can do the same for business. Use the virtual event as a networking platform and an opportunity to widen your scope, influence, and visibility, and therefore value.

The rule of community is that when one grows, the collective grows as well.

Picking the right virtual event format for your business

In business, it’s important to know your goal, and then find the best way to get there.

Explore your niche and get to know your customers.

Depending on the product or service you offer, some types of virtual events will have a higher chance of success than others.

Do you need an up close and personal webinar for your core audience, or a workshop to disseminate hands-on knowledge to a large user base?
Perhaps a highly structured conference for industry professionals is the way to go?

Maybe a behind-the-scenes tour of the business or an informal fireside chat to touch base with your home-bound, pyjama-clad team? Pick the format that works for you and follow through.

KPI, ROI and intelligent strategies

Once you’re clear on the goal you want to achieve, determine what key performance indicators (KPI) you’re going to use to measure your success.

There’s a variety of indicators for you to focus on, such as new leads, revenue, exposure via social media, or attendance.
Keep in mind that data is invaluable. It is a source of precious insights, and it will help you improve each time and get the kinks out.

Start by making a meta-strategy and plan the execution timeline. Break things down into smaller segments and dive in.
Be ready for surprises and minimize wild cards. There is always more to do than you think, always!

To minimize the chance of being blindsided by an unforeseen circumstance, make sure you have a detailed strategy in place.
This will help you prioritize and make sure all the hard work you and your team have put in pays off.

Delivering the right content to the right audience

There is a tribe of like-minded individuals out there searching for what you have. Find them.
If you go all wide and vague trying to target everyone just to run up the numbers, you’ll waste resources for barely a blip on the radar.

You don’t need everyone. You need to laser in on your ideal customers to make the biggest possible impact with the resources at your disposal.

Cross-reference with your current customer base demographics, look at who your closest competitors are targeting, or imagine your perfect attendee/customer/guest and build from there.

Make sure to keep your target audience in mind through all aspects of planning.
From determining the channels you use to promote and hold the event to the content, its format, and even the accompanying materials such as landing pages or e-booklets, your marketing choices and communication style should align with your target audience.

Knowing your audience will allow you to be less generic, to stand out, and truly deliver at a higher level than the bland beige monotone of ‘trying to speak to everyone’.

Follow up, thank-yous and feedback

Organizing an event means creating a memorable experience. Harness the reverberations of this experience in the days following the event and follow up while the emotions are still fresh.

In marketing, that’s known as the maximum impact zone. Send out thank-yous to make sure the people feel that you appreciate the time, attention, money, and effort they’ve invested in your event.

Thank everyone who contributed and participated, and use the recorded materials and insights to gain more traction, sending out ripples long after the wrap-up.

Wrap up

When you do things your way, they patronizingly label you crazy or strange. After you succeed in doing it, they lovingly call you eccentric.

Don’t be afraid to do things differently and venture into modes of communication you’ve never tried before. Keep what is tried and true, but add your own flavor.
When you plan your virtual event, remember what attracts audiences to you in the first place.

The bottom line is, if you don’t stand out in business, you’re (virtually) dead.

So make sure you stand out.

— Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a thriving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in business and tech. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter.

• Posted 12.23.20 at 05:09 am by Roy Osing
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December 19, 2020

3 practical actions to take when your career is at risk

3 practical actions to take when your career is at risk.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-generation event. Therefore, it is, in some ways, the perfect time to make a once-in-a-lifetime move and change careers. But changing careers can be a daunting prospect at the best of times. So how do you go about doing it during a pandemic? Where do you start? What are some key steps that you should take?

Here are some tips on how to find your new dream job during a time of great upheaval and uncertainty.

1. Do some sector-by-sector homework

The pandemic has brought some sectors and industries to their knees. Others are projected to see shrinkage going into the longer-term. This is why it is important to do your homework and see where the jobs are.

Use job boards, recruitment agency adverts and LinkedIn and have a look at the sectors with the most results. Once you have a sense of who is hiring and where, you can begin to look at the average job requirements.

You might already have transferable skills that are essential or desirable in whichever sector has grabbed your attention. If you do not, fear not, many sectors that are still growing are actively recruiting fresh talent off the back of their potential and life experience.

That being said, you will probably need to be prepared to upskill or even reskill. Don’t forget that soft skills are also key in recruitment processes. You must show that you are able to deal with colleagues and other stakeholders.

Communication, conflict management and negotiation skills training are some of the most in-demand areas of development that can help you to enhance your performance and have an appealing profile for recruiters.

2. Go back to school

This does not mean spending three years or more sitting in a university lecture hall once again, it simply means embracing new challenges.

Most career changes, even if it is to another sector that is directly related to your current one, will require you to undertake some sort of education. This could be a few shorter courses, a new certification or even an intensive course that will give you a completely new set of skills in a very short timeframe. You can get inspired by taking vocational courses that can open new opportunities in many fields.

As so many people are now having to actively return to education, or at least thinking of doing so, governments around the world are putting special funding in place for this sort of education. Take full advantage of this and see what funding and course options are available to you.

As important as upskilling and reskilling are, you also have to think about your network.

3. Make and renew connections

Reaching out to your network is the cornerstone of any successful career change. If you do not already have a LinkedIn account, make one and spend some time making it the best it can be. Remember, it can make as much of a first impression as meeting someone face-to-face can.

Look at your network, see what connections they have to any sectors into which you might want to move. But also add to your network, increase it and build it up.

Attend networking events, be there in-person or online, send out contact requests, reach out to former colleagues. These are all excellent ways of adding to your network. You can also add friends into your network. In doing this, you potentially pave the way for one of your friends’ contacts offering you work in your new sector.

The key points

Whether your career change is driven by want or necessity, you will need to do your homework. You should start by looking at the sectors that are hiring and seeing which ones appeal to you the most. Once you have done that, you can start looking at the job requirements of the sectors that have caught your interest.

Remember, you might not match the requirements perfectly, but you will certainly have plenty of transferable skills.

But, equally, do be aware that you might need to return to education. Fortunately, many governments are putting funding in place for this.

Lastly, look at your network, look at their connections, build up your network and add friends into it. If you do all of this, then you will have built yourself a strong launch pad into your new career.

— Luke Sandford is a writer and content producer at Educations Media Group. Currently based in Lund, he is originally from the UK and graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2018 with a BA in Education. He has since written for several outlets and has worked as an English teacher, both at home and abroad. Luke’s passion for travelling and experiencing new cultures directly impacts his work as he seeks to create engaging, informative and useful content for a wide audience.

• Posted 12.19.20 at 06:52 am by Roy Osing
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December 19, 2020

Stand Alone: Who Needs a Squad When You’re This Amazing?

Stand Alone: Who Needs a Squad When You’re This Amazing?

Squads are overrated.

Sure, it’s nice to have cheerleaders, backup dancers, and people to blame when things go wrong—but let’s be real: committees rarely create masterpieces.

Innovation isn’t a group activity.

Legendary moves aren’t made by consensus.

They’re made by individuals who dared to think, act, and stand alone. 🧠⚡

Think about it: ▪️Beyoncé didn’t need a focus group to drop a surprise album. ▪️Steve Jobs didn’t crowdsource the iPhone. ▪️Elon Musk didn’t ask for permission to launch a car into space.

Greatness doesn’t wait for everyone to agree—it moves, often while everyone else is still raising their hands to ask questions. 🙋

Being a lone wolf isn’t about arrogance. It’s about clarity.

It’s about trusting your vision so deeply that you don’t need external validation to move forward.

You don’t need a squad to tell you you’re cool—you already know.

You don’t need a team to approve your ideas—you test, iterate, and prove them yourself. 🐺💡

And let’s talk about freedom.

No endless meetings. No diluted ideas. No compromising your spark to fit someone else’s agenda.

When you stand alone, you move faster, think sharper, and own every win—and every lesson. 🧩🔥

That’s not to say collaboration is useless.

But there’s a difference between partnering with purpose and clinging to a crowd for comfort.

One builds empires. The other builds echo chambers.

So next time you feel the pressure to belong, ask yourself: Am I following because it’s wise—or because it’s easy?

True coolness isn’t fitting in.

It’s belonging so fully to yourself that you don’t need a squad to feel complete.

Stand alone. Own your weirdness. Trust your vibe.

And remember: the view from the top is always a solo experience. 🌄👑

You’re not lonely—you’re legendary.

Now go show them what cool really looks like. 💫🔥

Subscribe to my blog for more uncomfortable truths (and less comfortable lies).

Cheers,
Roy
My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION shares the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Unheard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 12.19.20 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink