Roy's Blog: October 2026
October 26, 2026
FRICTION. ISN’T. LOYALTY.
🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week
FRICTION. ISN’T. LOYALTY.
Customer retention strategies built around subscription traps, cancellation friction and complicated exit processes aren’t creating genuine customer loyalty.
They’re disguising customer dissatisfaction.
🔥 Governments Are Getting Fed Up
On October 1, 2026, New York City introduced a new Click-to-Cancel Rule targeting businesses that make it unnecessarily difficult for customers to cancel subscriptions.
Businesses can now face fines starting at $525 per violation in New York, and could reach as high as $3,500 for repeat offenders.
Think about that.
We’ve reached the point where governments have to intervene to stop businesses from trapping their own customers.
What an indictment of business strategy and customer service.
And an even bigger indictment of how some organizations define customer loyalty.
💥 Congratulations. You’ve Trapped Another Customer.
There’s a disturbing practice in business today.
Make it ridiculously easy for customers to buy.
Then make it bloody difficult for them to leave.
Sign up in seconds.
Cancel through a maze of instructions, automated messages and retention specialists.
And when the customer finally gives up trying?
Celebrate another successful renewal.
What a load of CRAP.
You’ve retained the revenue.
But have you retained the CUSTOMER?
There’s a BIG difference.
❤️ Build Barriers to Customer Exit™ That MATTER
In my BE DiFFERENT Growth Playbook™, I advocate building Barriers to Customer Exit™.
But I’m NOT talking about making cancellation difficult.
I’m talking about creating experiences so extraordinary that customers don’t WANT to leave.
Unexpected Acts of CARING.
Solving problems competitors wouldn’t touch.
Making customers FEEL special.
Giving them something they can’t get anywhere else.
That’s what customers CRAVE.
Not another loyalty program.
Not another complicated contract.
And certainly not another cancellation obstacle.
The objective is to become The ONLY One™ who delivers the experience your chosen customers desire.
That’s how you build genuine customer loyalty.
⛓️💥 Stop Measuring Captivity
Businesses obsess over customer retention rates.
Low churn.
High renewals.
Long customer relationships.
Lovely numbers.
But here’s the question nobody wants to ask.
How many customers are staying because they WANT to?
And how many are staying because leaving is simply too much trouble?
The other represents captivity.
So ask yourself:
“If every customer could leave us effortlessly tomorrow, how many would CHOOSE to stay?”
That’s the number that matters.
Then talk to customers who’ve recently cancelled.
Discover what they stopped valuing.
What disappointed them.
What they CRAVED that you failed to deliver.
And FIX something.
Because extraordinary businesses don’t need to trap customers.
They create experiences customers would HATE to lose.
Make leaving EASY.
Make staying IRRESISTIBLE.
FRICTION. ISN’T. LOYALTY.
🚀 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 10.26.26 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
- Permalink
October 19, 2026
SPRAY. DOESN’T. PAY.
🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week
SPRAY. DOESN’T. PAY.
B2B lead generation is drowning buyers in AI-generated outreach, generic sales messages and irrelevant LinkedIn prospecting.
The problem isn’t a shortage of leads. It’s a shortage of relevance.
📣 Everybody Wants MORE Leads
More prospects.
More LinkedIn connections.
More cold emails.
More AI-generated sales messages.
More marketing campaigns.
And now technology makes reaching thousands of potential customers ridiculously easy.
Wonderful.
But here’s my question.
Are you reaching more people who actually MATTER to your growth?
Or are you simply getting better at bothering people who couldn’t care less?
There’s a BIG difference.
🎯 Your WHO Is NOT Everybody
When I was building a startup into a business with more than A BILLION in annual sales, we couldn’t afford to chase everyone.
We had to make choices.
That’s why my Strategic Game Plan™ starts with HOW BIG?
What revenue growth do we want over the next 24 months?
Then comes the critical question.
WHO do we intend to SERVE to achieve it?
Not everybody who might buy something.
Not everybody who responds to a LinkedIn message.
The specific Customer Groups with the potential to deliver HOW BIG.
And here’s the uncomfortable part.
Choosing WHO to SERVE also means choosing WHO NOT to pursue.
Most businesses don’t have the guts to do that.
🪓 Stop Confusing Sales Activity With Buyer Engagement
Salespeople get celebrated for activity.
Cold calls made.
Emails sent.
LinkedIn prospects contacted.
Meetings booked.
Marketing people celebrate lead generation.
Impressions.
Clicks.
Engagement.
Lovely numbers.
But activity isn’t growth.
And AI-powered prospecting can make the problem worse by generating even MORE irrelevant outreach.
Your objective isn’t to build the biggest prospect list.
It’s to build the RIGHT one.
❤️ Buyer Relevance Begins With What Customers CRAVE
Once you’ve chosen your WHO, the real work begins.
Not simply what they need.
What they desire.
What frustrates them.
What makes them FEEL valued.
What would make them choose you over everyone else?
Then craft your ONLY Statement™ around delivering what matters most to them.
That’s how you become The ONLY One™.
Not by sending more sales messages.
Not by shouting louder on LinkedIn.
By becoming MORE relevant to the people you’ve deliberately chosen to serve.
🔥 Put Your Prospecting Strategy to the Test
Take your last 50 sales pursuits.
Ask three questions.
1. How many targeted Customer Groups capable of delivering HOW BIG?
2. How many demonstrated an understanding of what those customers CRAVE?
3. How many gave those customers a compelling reason to choose YOU?
If the answers embarrass you, good.
You’ve discovered something worth fixing.
Stop wasting energy on prospects who don’t fit your Strategic Game Plan™.
Redirect it toward the critical few who do.
Because when everyone is your prospect, nobody is your priority.
SPRAY. DOESN’T. PAY.
🚀 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 10.19.26 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
- Permalink
October 15, 2026
Customer Satisfaction Is Enough? Think Again
BE DiFFERENT Unfiltered™
The Sacred Cow Burial™
Business is full of accepted beliefs.
Some deserve to be buried.
This is one of them.
🐄 This Week’s Sacred Cow
🎯 “Customer Satisfaction Is Enough.”
It’s measured.
It’s reported to the board.
Organizations celebrate high satisfaction scores as if they’ve reached the finish line.
They haven’t.
They’ve barely made it to the starting line.
🚫 The Evidence
Satisfied customers leave.
Satisfied customers compare prices.
Satisfied customers switch brands.
Satisfied customers become someone else’s customer.
Why?
Because satisfaction is an expectation.
Not a competitive advantage.
No customer walks out of your business saying,
“Wow… they met my expectations.”
People talk about experiences.
They remember how you made them feel.
They remember the employee who went out of their way to help.
The unexpected gesture.
The problem that was solved without an argument.
The moment they felt valued.
That’s what creates loyalty.
Not satisfaction.
The organizations that win don’t aim to satisfy customers.
They aim to create Dazzling Experiences™.
Experiences that surprise people.
Experiences worth talking about.
Experiences competitors can’t copy.
And when something goes wrong…
That’s when extraordinary organizations separate themselves from everyone else.
They don’t hide behind policies.
They don’t explain why they can’t help.
They rely on Organizational Instinct™.
Their first response isn’t,
“Here’s our policy.”
It’s…
“How can I help?”
That’s Say YES!™
It’s not a slogan.
It’s not a customer service program.
It’s an instinct that puts the customer before the rule.
Sometimes the greatest opportunity to build loyalty comes when you’ve made a mistake.
A remarkable recovery often creates a stronger relationship than a transaction where nothing ever went wrong.
⚖️ Sacred Cow Verdict
Guilty.
🪦 Sacred Cow Sentence
Bury It.
🚀 Sacred Cow Replacement
Create Dazzling Experiences™.
Don’t settle for satisfied customers.
Create customers who tell stories.
Build an Organizational Instinct™ that solves problems instead of defending policies.
Teach every employee to ask,
“How can I help?”
Say YES!™ whenever you can.
Recover brilliantly when things go wrong.
Those are the moments customers remember.
Those are the moments that create loyalty.
Don’t measure success by customer satisfaction.
Measure it by customer loyalty.
Measure it by the stories customers tell.
Measure it by how many come back—and bring their friends.
🪦 Another Sacred Cow Buried.
Another Sacred Cow Buried.
Bury it. Replace it. BE DiFFERENT.
Satisfied customers are easy to find.
Loyal customers are earned.
Create experiences people never forget.
Solve problems with humanity.
Make saying YES your instinct.
Because customers don’t remember being satisfied.
They remember how you made them feel.
That’s how extraordinary businesses become The ONLY One.
🪦 Ready for the Next Sacred Cow Burial?
Thursdays I challenge accepted business beliefs that limit leaders and organizations.
If you’re ready to think differently, follow the BE DiFFERENT Unfiltered™ series.
✋ Continue the Conversation
🎙️ Listen to my podcast, Audacious Moves™ to a BILLION where I reveal the decisions that transformed a startup into a billion-dollar business.
📖 Read more insights at: BE DiFFERENT or be dead.
Cheers,
Roy
- Posted 10.15.26 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
- Permalink
October 13, 2026
TRACKING. KILLS. TRUST.
🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week
TRACKING. KILLS. TRUST.
Employee monitoring and customer service scorecards can undermine the very behaviour that creates extraordinary customer experiences.
🔥 You Can’t Measure Your Way to Caring
We’ve become obsessed with measuring everything.
Every customer interaction.
Every word spoken.
Every second spent.
Every procedure followed.
And now AI can monitor practically every aspect of the customer conversation.
Wonderful.
Or is it?
We’re getting better at measuring customer service without necessarily getting better at SERVING customers.
There’s a BIG difference.
❤️ Customers Don’t Crave a Perfect Score
Think about the last time you had a serious problem with a company.
Did you care whether the employee followed the approved script?
Or completed the transaction within the prescribed time?
Of course not.
You wanted someone who actually gave a damn.
Someone who understood your problem.
Someone who cared enough to find a solution.
Someone who made you FEEL that you mattered.
That’s what customers CRAVE.
Not another perfectly executed corporate procedure.
💥 The Goosebumps Connection
I’ve always argued that organizations need to Hire for Goosebumps™.
Recruit Human Being Lovers.
People who genuinely love making someone’s day.
People who instinctively want to help.
YOU CAN TEACH THE SKILL. YOU CAN’T TEACH THE WILL.
But here’s the problem.
You can hire the most extraordinary Human Being Lovers on the planet.
Then destroy their effectiveness by forcing them to behave like programmed robots.
Follow the script.
Meet the target.
Obey the policy.
Don’t take too long.
Don’t make exceptions.
Congratulations.
You’ve just hired someone who LOVES humans and created an environment that prevents them from showing it.
How stupid is that?
🚀 Your Operating System Is the Culprit
This is why the BE DiFFERENT Growth Playbook™ doesn’t stop at creating a Strategic Game Plan™.
You have to OPERATE IT.
Bake differentiation into the way your organization actually works.
If your strategy promises Dazzling Moments™, your operating system must make them possible.
Build an Organizational Instinct™ to solve customer problems rather than defend policies.
Practice Say YES!™.
Give frontline people the freedom to solve problems.
And measure what actually matters.
Not script compliance.
Not transaction speed.
Did we solve the customer’s problem?
Did we make them FEEL cared for?
Did we give them a reason to stay?
I’m not against measurement.
I’m against measuring the wrong damn things.
Because extraordinary service doesn’t come from watching people more closely.
It comes from giving the RIGHT people the freedom to do extraordinary things.
Hire people who love humans.
Build an operating system that lets them prove it.
You can’t monitor someone into giving a damn.
🚀 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 10.13.26 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
- Permalink
