November 2, 2026

SAVED. THEN. SQUANDERED.

🚀 Audacious Move™ of the Week

SAVED. THEN. SQUANDERED.

Businesses are investing heavily in AI productivity tools to automate work, save employee time and improve efficiency.
But realizing a return on investment (ROI) from AI requires more than measuring hours saved.
It requires clear accountability for turning those productivity gains into measurable business results.

🤖 Congratulations. You’ve Saved 100 Hours.

A recent Gartner Report found that only 21% of employee time freed by AI is being redirected toward more innovative work.

Think about that.

Companies are investing heavily in artificial intelligence.

Automating work.

Eliminating tasks.

Saving thousands of employee hours.

And celebrating their productivity gains.

Wonderful.

But I have one question.

WHO OWNS THE TIME YOU’VE SAVED?

Because if nobody owns it, nobody is accountable for what happens to it.

And that’s a BIG problem.

💥 The Missing Line on Your Scorecard

Organizations meticulously track AI investments.

Software costs.

Implementation expenses.

Hours saved.

Productivity improvements.

But once those hours are saved?

They disappear.

Absorbed by meetings.

Swallowed by routine activities.

Consumed by more of the same.

SAVED. THEN. SQUANDERED.

Imagine investing $1 million in new equipment and having no plan for what it would produce.

Ridiculous.

Yet that’s essentially what businesses risk doing with the capacity AI creates.

🦅 Enter The Strategy Hawk™

In my BE DiFFERENT Growth Playbook™, The Strategy Hawk™ is responsible for making damn sure the Strategic Game Plan™ gets EXECUTED.

Not admired.

Not discussed endlessly.

EXECUTED.

And AI productivity gains create a new challenge for the Hawk.

When technology frees up 100 hours, the Hawk doesn’t simply applaud the savings.

The Hawk asks:

WHO gets those hours?

WHAT Strategic Game Plan™ priority will they advance?

WHAT results must they deliver?

WHEN will we see them?

WHO is accountable for delivering them?

Then the Hawk follows through.

Challenges.

Tracks.

Intervenes.

Calls the Audible™ when necessary.

Because time saved without strategic direction is simply an opportunity to waste more time.

AI creates the capacity.

The Strategy Hawk™ makes sure it gets used to execute the strategy.

🔥 Stop Celebrating the Wrong Thing

Here’s what bothers me about the AI productivity conversation.

We’re celebrating the INPUT.

Hours saved.

Tasks eliminated.

Costs reduced.

But where are the strategic RESULTS?

The new revenue?

The improved customer experience?

The growth opportunities created?

The competitive advantage strengthened?

Those are the results that deserve applause.

And The Strategy Hawk™ should be relentless in demanding them.

Because the objective isn’t to become more efficient at doing business.

It’s to become more effective at WINNING business.

STOP CELEBRATING HOURS SAVED.

SAVED. THEN. SQUANDERED.

Don’t let it happen.

🚀 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 11.2.26 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

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.

Dazzling Moments™.

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?

One represents loyalty.

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.

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.

Discover what they CRAVE.

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 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 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.

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