Be Different or be dead

June 13, 2016

Expert advice on how to build a winning business plan

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Expert advice on how to build a winning business plan.

Much has been written about how to build a business strategy that is effective in today’s height volatile and competitive world.

Here are a few tips from the experts on how to build a business plan that works in today’s highly volatile world, and on the common mistakes organizations make.

▪️“The granddaddy of all mistakes is competing to be the best, going down the same path as everybody else and thinking that somehow you can achieve better results.” — Michael Porter, Business Strategy Guru

▪️“Everyone in the industry follows the same advice. Companies benchmark each other’s practices and products. Customers, lacking meaningful choice, buy on price alone. Profitability deteriorates…. Nothing is more absurd — and yet more widespread — than the belief that somehow you can do exactly what everyone else is doing and yet end up with superior results.” — Joan Magretta, Stop Competing To Be The Best

▪️“I saw that leaders placed too much emphasis on what some call high-level strategy, on intellectualizing and philosophizing, and not enough on implementation. People would agree on a project or initiative, and then nothing would come of it.” — Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

▪️“The extraordinary—and accurate, as I see it — hypothesis is that we inordinately pay attention to strategy, customers, innovation, and the like, but not the true discriminator between success and failure — implementation!” — Ram Charan, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

▪️“Abandoning activities is not as sexy as acquiring them or building them up, but it’s just as important – and the most overlooked aspect of leadership. Yesterday’s star product may produce profits now, but it soon becomes a barrier to the introduction and success of tomorrow’s breadwinner. One should, therefore, abandon yesterday’s breadwinner before one really wants to, let alone before one has to. Of course innovation is risky. But defending yesterday is far more risky than creating tomorrow.” — Peter Drucker on Purposeful Abandonment

▪️“If you want to grow your business; before you decide where and how to grow - the first thing you need to do is stop doing what’s not working and get rid of the outgrown, the obsolete and the unproductive.” — Peter Drucker on Purposeful Abandonment

These are all excellent points which highlight the critical ways to make your business plan successful and to differentiate your organization from every other one in the markets you serve.

My takeaways:

1. A business plan based on copying others will never produce a winning strategy;

2. A business plan without execution isn’t a strategy, it’s a wish;

3. A business plan built on a base of irrelevant activity will never work until the CRAP in the organization is purged.

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

• Posted 6.13.16 at 04:50 am by Roy Osing
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June 6, 2016

5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams

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5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams.

You’ve heard it a million times. Building extraordinary value in an organization requires amazing people.

You can have the most innovative technology and the coolest products and services, but without the people layer to transform these capabilities into value, they are worthless.

How do you recruit people who will deliver unbelievable performance for your organization?

What do you look for?

The profile of the person you recruit must fit the challenges that organizations face in today’s markets. Intense competition, highly empowered customers, and unpredictability describe the barriers to success and survival.

Recruit these 5 traits to build a team that will stand out from the crowd and raise your performance to unbelievable levels.

#1. Human being lovers — They have a genuine affection for people; they care for others. This makes them extreme team players who will actually do whatever it takes to help their fellow employees to move the collective forward.

#2. Goosebumps story teller — They love telling a story and they have a million of them. They tell their story with such richness and emotion, they take your breath away. They are particularly good at telling stories that illustrate their desire and commitment to have credit go to others.

#3. Anti-rhetorician — They focus on what they’ve actually achieved rather than attempt to persuade and impress through high fog factor language. Results speak louder than intent; they get it and they can prove that they’ve done it.

#4. Driver — An intense sense of urgency fuels everything they do. It’s more than ‘action orientation’; it’s more a natural element of their personal DNA. They don’t tolerate discussing the theoretical benefits of an idea; they want to get on with trying it out to see if it has any practical value.

#5. Un-perfectionist — They are satisfied with getting it just about right and are prepared to change course in the face of unexpected events. They are ‘learn as you go’ individuals who see value in making progress, learning from execution and delivering results.

The academic pedigree isn’t a helpful predictor of an individual’s contribution to organizational performance. It shows what you know not what you will likely do.

And ‘doing it’ is what is needed for success.

’Knowing it’ alone is worthless.

Recruit people with these 5 competencies and you will be able to ‘do it’.

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

• Posted 6.6.16 at 04:30 am by Roy Osing
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May 30, 2016

7 simple ways to save your customers after a screwup

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7 simple ways to save your customers after a screw up.

People would rather have a root canal than have to deal with a customer who has been screwed over.

It’s always amazed me that organizations don’t have a strategy in place to recover from a customer screw-up.

It’s not like screw-ups won’t happen; unfortunately they happen with regularity and for a variety of reasons.

And they are certainly not viewed as a source of opportunity; the intent is to get it over with as soon as possible. Endure the pain and move on without looking back.

We spend literally all of our time trying to prevent screw-ups. New fulfillment systems are implemented, employee training programs are created; anything to deliver service flawlessly and prevent bad stuff happening.

Nothing wrong with this except it denies the reality of screw-ups happening; virtually no time is dedicated to building a recovery capability.

Ironically we EXPECT things to go as promised when we transact with an organization and give them a “C” on their service report card when they do.

Successful recovery has two significant benefits.

▪️Customer loyalty actually increases compared to the OOPS! never having occurred at all!

Customers are impressed with what you did to make things better and tend not to be bent out of shape about the mistake made in the first place. They go WOW! give you an “A”, tell others about their experience; their loyalty deepens.

▪️Effective recovery creates a competitive advantage for the organization because others don’t see the need and continue to pour all of their resources into service breakdown prevention (and continue to get “C’s”).

Focus on these things to turn a screw-up into a competitive opportunity:

1. It is critical to build a service recovery strategy to give recovery activity a strategic context in the organization;

2. Hire people who love chaos and who welcome diving into a mess and sorting it out. They need a high pain tolerance and they need to be amazing problem solvers;

3. Give power and authority to the owner of the screw up (who has the ranting customer in their face) to do whatever it takes to resolve it. Ignore job descriptions;

4. Fix it fast. You have literally 24 hours to recover and reap the rewards of enhanced customer loyalty. After that, you’ve blown it and all you get is misery and a brand rap as they everyone about your crummy service;

5. Surprise them with what they don’t expect. Know the customer you’ve screwed over and personalize the experience for them rather than use a boilerplate solution applied to everyone. If you knew I loved Pinot Noir you could use this knowledge in how you recovered with ME.

6. Take responsibility for the OOPS! whether or not you were directly at fault. Lose your ego. Don’t quote policy. Don’t make it out that it was the customer’s fault (happens all the time). Customers want you to show some empathy then launch into solution mode.

7. Recognize recovery addicts; those individuals who exhibit greatness in mending broken promises and who are natural loyalty builders.

Measure how effective you are at making up with a customer after a fight.

Get their feedback immediately after the scuffle.

Improve as you move on.

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

• Posted 5.30.16 at 05:28 am by Roy Osing
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May 16, 2016

Is your product really worth taking out for dinner?

Is your product really worth taking out for dinner?

Or would you make a weekend out of it?

A dinner conveys a certain amount of value being derived but a weekend is at another level completely.

And of course if you wouldn’t even talk to your product, that’s another story.

The amount of personal time and money you are prepared to invest depends on the value you receive.

How is value described? 

By how your product functions? Does it work as promised? Does it deliver to specifications?

Or is value related to how your product makes you feel when consumed? Are you proud of it?

Does it blow your mind?

Does value derive from function or does it come from feelings?

Which is more important? Which is the better metric of product performance?

Most organizations believe a product is performing well if it consistently does what it’s supposed to do.

Product specifications are delivered 24X7. Dependability is the key success factor.

The issue is that performance doesn’t go far enough today; customers expect products that work as promised. And when they do, they are at best satisfied.

No loyalty is created and the customer will leave for a better mousetrap when it shows up.

On the other hand, when the product amazes, when memories are created and when magic happens, customers buy in at a completely different level.

They turn into maniacal fans who go out of their way to support your organization in every way.

And they spread your word to others.

By all means ensure your product performs consistently, but don’t stop until you wrap it up with an AMAZE layer that delights.

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

• Posted 5.16.16 at 04:04 am by Roy Osing
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