June 9, 2025

How To Build A More Fantastic Sales Organization

How To Build A More Fantastic Sales Organization

An audacious and unmatched Sales Team is not created on the backs of sales tactics or techniques.
It’s not developed by being “the best” practitioner of sales principles espoused by the textbooks on the subject.

Unique Sales Teams who are The ONLY Ones who do what they do are grown out of Context and Culture.

Context — the overall organization has a strategy that declares customer loyalty as the key strategic imperative for growth.

Leadership in THIS organization believes that long term growth is achievable only by nurturing their loyal base of customers; they place a lower emphasis on acquiring new customers to fuel their growth activities.

Culture — the culture of the organization is an expression of customer obsession, memorable serving experiences and long term relationships.

The Value System in these companies honors serving others as the behavior necessary to build long term customer relationships and long term growth.

Sales should be looked upon as being in the SERVING game not the product pushing game.

If you are looking to take your Sales Team to a higher level and you DON’T have Context and Culture solidly in place, you will be forced to improve sales efficiency rather than strategic effectiveness.

And the result will be unimpressive.

You will look like every other salesforce who covets the same sales “best practices” with the expectation that somehow you will achieve miraculous results.

Insanity = Doing what everyone else is doing and expecting breathtaking results.

With Context and Culture in play, here are my top 3 priorities to establish a mind-blowing Sales Team:

#1. Recruitment — a customer-obsessed serving culture requires employees who “love humans”.

You can teach people sales techniques, but you can’t teach them how to love people!
You must recruit individuals who have a natural innate desire to SERVE others.

I created the “Hiring for Goosebumps” method to identify potential employees with “I love humans” in their DNA.
It worked unbelievably well even though some thought it was a crazy process. Whatever. It helped us to A BILLION IN SALES.

#2. Performance Planning — Serving expectations must be clearly defined in each salesperson’s annual Performance Plan.

And they must be relentlessly measured.

Expectations in the serving realm typically are behavior-based. They relate to human traits like: keeping promises, availability, follow-up, attitude, fixing mistakes, responsiveness, problem solving approach, listening and respect.

The challenge is to define the traits that are important to your target customers, set objectives for each of them and measure the sales person’s performance on each of them regularly via customer perception surveys on a simple scale like “Poor, Fair, Average, Good, Excellent”.

These serving objectives should be as robust as the product sales targets that will also be in the sales performance plan.

#3. Compensation — The old adage ”People do what they’re paid to do.” is particularly true of salespeople who, in my experience, are more relentlessly driven by their compensation plan than most other employees.

If you don’t get their bonus compensation plan “right”—defined as being 100% aligned with the strategy of the organization—dysfunction sets in and desired results will elude you.

SERVING targets based on the desired behaviors expected must be set and paid for in the sales compensation plan.
And they must be given a strong enough weight in relation to other targets (like product sales) to capture their attention and act accordingly.

The compensation plan might look something like this in year 1: 30% of the bonus would be paid out on SERVING performance; 70% on product sales. In subsequent years of the plan, you want to increase the weight for the SERVING component at the expense of the product sales component.

Taking sales performance to a higher level isn’t about sales tools.
It’s about context & culture followed by recruitment, performance planning and the bonus compensation plan.

If you don’t get this formula right, you’ll get micro efficiency gains perhaps, but you won’t get any movement in the strategic effectiveness dial.

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 6.9.25 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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June 2, 2025

What Are The Gigantic Mistakes People Make in Marketing?

What Are The Gigantic Mistakes People Make in Marketing?

MISTAKE #1. Marketers struggle with differentiation. — Aspirational and meaningless statements like these contaminate the competitive claim-scape:

“We’re in business to save our home planet.”

“Champions of Customer Service”

These declarations are not only aspirational, they’re CLAPTRAP and narcissistic. AND everyone talks this way.
They are the organization’s view of THEMSELVES as opposed to reasons why they should be chosen.

Forget about what you’ve been taught about USP’s. They’re not helpful.

If you’re not the ONLY One that does what you do, you’re a member of the herd and success will be an elusive beast!

MISTAKE #2. Product flogging reigns supreme. — Seriously, why do you think your products will win the day?

They won’t! Everyone offers essentially the same products.

People buy on feelings. What emotional response do you create with your efforts?
If you want to flog anything, flog experiences.

MISTAKE #3. Too much price emphasis. — If you talk about price all the time, customers will think that’s all you’re about.

Is it?
What about VALUE, and delivering what people desire & CRAVE?
Focus on delivering amazing and unique value and let price follow.

MISTAKE #4. Customer acquisition is treated as sexy. — Get a new customer. Entice them into your fold by offering them freebies.
Forget about the ones you already have. You won them in the past and they’ll stay loyal to you.

That’s the mentality of much of marketing today.
The truth is that sustainable growth is produced on the backs of your loyal customer base.
Pay attention to the people who pay you regularly, not the ones who MIGHT.

MISTAKE #5. Customer “needs” are the driving force behind purchase decisions. — Let’s face it, most buyers already have most of their needs satisfied, so if you want to compete in the “needs space” be prepared for intense competition AND pressure to reduce your prices.

The “needs satisfaction business” is a commodity world where low prices squeeze profit margins (unless economies of scale and scope are present which, for most of us, doesn’t apply).

Fewer competitors and the ability to sell at premium prices exists in the “CRAVINGS” space where people buy more on feelings than anything else. They buy what they want and DESIRE, not what they need.

Determine what your target customer groups REALLY WANT, deliver flawlessly and reap the financial rewards.

5 mistakes with simple proven solutions that helped me take a startup to A BILLION IN SALES.

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 6.2.25 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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May 26, 2025

5 Simple Reasons To Not Worry About Your Competitors

5 Simple Reasons To Not Worry About Your Competitors

Don’t Worry #1. — You can’t really control them, so why be obsessed with keeping them out?

It’s a losing proposition. Focus on what you CAN influence and control — YOUR own actions not someone else’s.

What can you control? Trying to keep your existing customers from leaving you.

Do your work on that.

Don’t Worry #2. — Worrying about them takes you away from the real important stuff.

It’s a diversion away from doing the critical work of sustaining a loyal base of customers.

Invest your scarce resources in strengthening customer loyalty.

Don’t Worry #3. — While you are trying to erect barriers to keep your competitors out, your customers are leaving.

The opportunity cost of trying to keep “the bad guys” out is the revenue and profit you now enjoy from current customers.

While you’re looking out for the hordes at your front doorstep, your most precious assets are sneaking out the back door because you’ve mistreated or ignored them.

Don’t Worry #4. — The textbooks aren’t always right.

I know it’s sexy to “do battle” with your competitors; academic principles tell us to erect barriers and divert the hungry enemy away from us.

But the textbooks aren’t always right.

Focus on your customer. Observe your competitor.

Don’t Worry #5. — It’s the wrong strategy. Focus on The WHO, not The THEM.

Apply your obsession to those customer groups that have displayed the potential to deliver your growth goals. Discover what they CRAVE (841). Deliver the unique VALUE they crave.

Competitors are NOT a target market, so why allocate resources to them?
It’s the wrong strategy.

Focus on delivering value that your customers CARE (1427) about and observe what your competitors are doing.

Be customer led and competitor driven.

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 5.26.25 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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May 19, 2025

Reasons Successful Businesses Give Customers Massive Goosebumps

Reasons Successful Businesses Give Customers Massive Goosebumps

What makes a business a success?
✔️ the brilliance of their strategy?
✔️ the vision of their leader?
✔️ their clever use of AI?
✔️ the number of MBA’s they have on their teams?
✔️ their productivity levels?
✔️ their deployment of all the latest efficiency technology?

No question that all of the above are contributing factors to success, but in my experience there is one simple characteristic that separates the average organization from the truly outstanding and unmatched one.

Special & extremely successful organizations have figured out ways to give their customers “goosebumps” during the engagement process!

It’s as simple as that, yet I know of few organizations that pay attention to this unbelievably impactful tactic.

Why do goosebumps lead to business success?

Because goosebumps happen when someone is overcome with the emotion they are FEELING in the moment.

They are surprised with what someone else has done for them.

They are overwhelmed with the kindness that has been shown to them by another human.

They are amazed with how much effort someone else has put into delivering what they expect.

They are left breathless because of the empathy shown by someone who is engaged with them.

Goosebumps show up when human caring and compassion are at play.

So what? I get goosebumps. How does that lead to business success?

Well, the “Goosebump-ee” is happy with the experience they’ve just witnessed.

They conclude you are an organization that is special and DiFFERENT from others in a crowd of plastic, superficial, product-flogging, indifferent and profit-centric pluralists.

They decide to continue to give you their money, AND they tell everyone they know how amazing you are, AND they give you gasp-worthy reviews.

The Goosebump-ee sells you to others. They are your best advocates to the marketplace.

Your Service Strategy should have one and ONLY one objective… to evoke goosebumps from the customer being served.

Some moves I made to achieve the goosebump outcome in every customer engagement:
✔️ recruit people who actually “love humans” and who are driven to take care of them.
✔️ reinvent your policies to enable the customer transaction and not control it.
✔️ track whether or not customers are dazzled with the serving experience they receive.
✔️ include the goosebump outcome in employee performance plans.
✔️ celebrate people who consistently evoke goosebumps from customers, and have an annual “Goose Award” for the person who is the champion.

Sounds crazy, right?

But I guarantee that if you implement the concept you will be well on your way to building a customer-obsessed culture with the loyalty benefits that go with it.

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 5.19.25 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink