Roy's Blog: January 2023
January 16, 2023
Why a competitive edge is not good enough to beat your competitors
Why a competitive edge is not good enough to beat your competitors.
If your business plan talks about achieving an edge over your competitors, it’s falling short.
Words like ‘edge’ and ‘advantage’ to describe your competitive intent lack the visceral dimension to create lasting success.
Let’s talk about crippling the efforts of your competitors and prevailing over them.
Being better isn’t good enough.
Sustained success comes from assaulting the competition with the sole purpose of dominating them.
Here’s why:
1. Incremental thinking gets incremental results. An edge to me connotes being slightly better; it is simply not good enough. It implies that you are inches ahead when you really need to be miles ahead to assure longer term success.
2. Bold outcomes need to be achieved to survive. Set a bold goal and you have a better chance of achieving significant progress. Set a weak goal and unfortunately you may achieve it.
3. ‘Dominate’ and ‘assault’ represent a state of strategic mind. A way of thinking. They challenge us to gain quantum leaps. Our customers, employees and owners have a right to expect such outcomes.
4. A domination outcome requires customer value creation of a different scale than a competitive edge strategy. To dominate, HUGE value must be created for customers constantly in unrelenting fashion. A casual approach will not work.
5. The ‘word’ drives organizational energy. How much juice is created with mild milk-toast intent? An adrenalin rush inside your warriors is needed to execute your strategy. ‘Lets go get an edge!’ is not likely to arouse the passion as much as ‘Lets go dominate and cripple them!’ No energy = No execution.
6. True competitive spirit comes through emotion not the intellect. You can’t intellectualize yourself to beat your competitors. You need people who will go to war to create customer loyalty and prevent the hordes from entering your turf. Language IS strategic. Words that appeal to the right brain will help drive the behavior needed.
7. Sustainable differences are needed. Long term success comes from a relentless, constant strategic push. Domination implies a long time horizon. Edge doesn’t even come close.
My reader might say that such strong words are inappropriate; they’re ‘not dignified; they’re ‘unbecoming’ and ‘unprincipled’.
To this I say we, as leaders are charged with the responsibility of creating customer VALUE in the market to ensure people have meaningful and fulfilling work and to ensure that owners get paid.
Tough task. Horrendous roadblocks.
It requires toughness, a high pain tolerance and a strategy that WINS over the long term. If the language that goes along with achieving this purpose offends some, so be it.
Cheers,
Roy
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- Posted 1.16.23 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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January 2, 2023
3 bold ways to turn your resolution into unexpected results
Source: Unsplash
3 simple ways to turn your resolution into amazing results.
Resolutions rarely are achieved because they are aspirations at best.
Think about your challenge as creating a game plan NOT declaring a resolution.
A game plan to achieve your goal by the end of the year. A declaration with sufficient granularity to define specifically WHAT needs to be done to get to where you want to get to.
I am not a fan of resolutions.
“I resolve to…” is merely an aspiration; a dream that more often than not lacks the precision to achieve it
You may have the will; but unless you define the steps to achieve it, it is unlikely to happen.
My resolution is to get physically fit this year fit isn’t particularly helpful in terms of actually doing it; “I intend to join a gym by Feb 1st and workout at least twice a week.” Is much better because it’s operational.
Here are 3 suggestions that might help move you forward in terms of having a Resolution that actually yield results:
1. Keep it simple — What’s complicated doesn’t get done. Try for the binary thing: on or off; do it or not. Easy to measure.
You either want to get a new job or not. “Doing better” is a non-objective. Clap trap goals are meaningless. Too wishy-washy. Too vague.
“I intend to go on a vacation to Tahiti by September”. Nice. Simple.
2. Keep it focused — on your most pressing priorities. Just because the herd wants to go gluten-free you don’t have to.
And only include something if you are serious about doing it. What do you “itch for”? What do you crave? Ignore the rest of the universe. What do YOU want?
3. Keep it to three —Many scattered complicated declarations don’t work. Few promises get kept. Frustration creeps in. Your personal plan isn’t a To Do List. It’s not a list of possibilities.
What 3 things would make your life so much better? Travel? Education? Health? Career? Family?
Pick your top 3 and get on with it.
Good luck…
Cheers,
Roy
45+ Podcast Shows I’ve done that unpack my work.
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series
‘Audacious’ is my latest…
- Posted 1.2.23 at 05:43 am by Roy Osing
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