Be Different or be dead

May 13, 2024

BE DiFFERENT or be dead: How To Make YOU! Stand Out

BE DiFFERENT or be dead: How To Make YOU! Stand Out

In today’s hyper-competitive world, blending in is a recipe for obscurity. Whether you’re in business, an artist, or an individual, the mantra “BE DiFFERENT or be dead” rings truer than ever before.

Here’s why embracing and leveraging your uniqueness is not just a choice but a necessity if you want to win in today’s world:

1. Cut Through the Noise — With the digital landscape overflowing with content, being different is the only way to grab attention.

Define your target customers and define what sets you apart and amplify that uniqueness.

2. Build a BE DiFFERENT Tribe — People are drawn to authenticity.

By being truly unique and The ONLY One who does what you do, you attract like-minded individuals who resonate with your message.
This creates an “Army of Advocates” that can’t be replicated.

3. Innovation and Pushing Forward — History remembers those who dared to challenge the status quo.

Innovation thrives on contrarianism, disruption, diversity of thought and unconventional approaches. By being different, you contribute to the sustainability of progress and advancement.

4. Resilience in Adversity — When you’re different, you have to be inherently resilient otherwise high levels of performance and achievements escape you.

You’ve already faced skepticism and doubt simply by deviating from the norm. This resilience is your armor in the face of challenges.

5. Legacy and Impact — Being different isn’t just about the present; it’s about leaving a lasting legacy.

Those who dare to be different are the ones who shape the future, leaving behind a mark that inspires generations to come.

“BE DiFFERENT or be dead” isn’t just a catchy phrase—it’s a call to action.

Embrace your “ONLY-ness”, stand out boldly, and watch as the world takes notice.

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will take your business and your career to astronomical heights.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 5.13.24 at 04:15 am by Roy Osing
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May 6, 2024

Why You Need To Visit “BEDiFFERENTorbedead.com” NOW!

Why You Need To Visit “BEDiFFERENTorbedead.com” NOW.

Are you tired of the same old - same old textbook rhetoric and advice?

Feeling stuck and craving some inspiration and practical and proven advice from someone who has had a successful career in growing an early stage internet company to A BILLION IN SALES?

Look no further than BeDifferentOrBeDead.com!

This website is not your average, pedantic common platform; it’s a unique, unmatched and vibrant community dedicated to empowering individuals to embrace their uniqueness—being the ONLY ones who do what they do—and winning against all competitive odds in business, their career and their lives.

Here are three no-brainer reasons why you should visit BeDifferentOrBeDead.com NOW! and make it part of your daily routine.

1. Explore Practical & Proven Content You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

There’s a ton of content on my site that breaks down how I applied my BE DiFFERENT Audacious Moves to the many challenges in business, careers and your personal life.

▪️Leadership
▪️Business Success
▪️Careers
▪️Marketing
▪️Sales
▪️Customer Service
▪️Entrepreneurs
▪️Your Life

I’ve been actively sharing my experience and proven Audacious Moves for over a decade.
And it’s all “How To” material that is easy to read—“fog factor” is close to ZERO—and can be put to use immediately, unlike the theoretical CLAPTRAP espoused by many other sources.

2. Unleash Your ONLY Self

In a world that both teaches and encourages conformity, compliance and following the rules, BeDifferentOrBeDead.com celebrates nonconformity, contrarianism, disruption and how to introduce discontinuity as a key differentiation tool.

Through thought-provoking reality-based articles, personal stories and practical & actionable tips, Roy Osing’s blog and books inspire you to discover what makes you special, your quirks, passions, and individual authenticity and express them in a way that satisfies the needs of others—your company, boss and loved ones.

Discover the power of being unapologetically yourself and how it can transform your life and, more importantly, the lives of those around you.

3. Find Your Passion and Purpose to Get Out Of The Herd

Do you feel like you’re drifting through life with no clear sense of direction, being pulled to and fro by the populist narratives of the day?

BeDifferentOrBeDead.com provides practical and proven ways to help you discover your unique passions and purpose that will serve others in an exemplary manner.

From career advice to personal development strategies to successful business strategies, you’ll find guidance to ignite your inner fire, become The ONLY One who does what you do, and pursue your dreams audaciously and with confidence.

4. Join Others Who Want To Be Free Of Mediocrity

At BeDifferentOrBeDead.com you’re not alone on your journey to BE DiFFERENT and distinguish yourself from the “herd of sameness” around you

Connect with like-minded individuals who are also striving to break away from societal norms and embrace their unique path.

Share your experiences, offer support, and celebrate each other’s victories in a welcoming environment.

5. Take The Quiz To Find Out If You’re DiFFerENT

Do you want to differentiate yourself or your organization from the crowd around you and your competitors?
Take my Quiz to determine if you’re taking the right actions to achieve your objective.

My Quiz explores how you are currently applying the various aspects of BE DiFFERENT in your business planning, marketing, sales and customer service efforts. And it gives you direction on the area that needs the most attention NOW!

Have fun rating yourself (with no one watching you) HeHe.

Don’t settle for mediocrity when you can live a life that’s truly audacious, remarkable and extraordinary.

Visit BeDifferentOrBeDead.com today and embark on a journey of transformation from the norms of the day to a unique YOU that satisfies what others CARE about in a way no one else does.

Remember, it’s not about fitting in; it’s about standing out from the common herd and being proudly, unapologetically you.

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 5.6.24 at 05:44 am by Roy Osing
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April 29, 2024

Differentiation Really Sucks Today. Here’s How To Nail It

Differentiation Really Sucks Today. Here’s How To Nail It.

Differentiation: What’s the problem?

UNDIFFERENTIATION IS HAPPENING!

▪️COPYING IS RAMPANT!

You can’t be different if you’re in the COPY MODE.
Everybody copies everybody. Benchmarking is used as the ‘tool of innovation’.

It’s dishonest.

“Strategic convergence means that over time most firms end up in the same place. 
This is what happens if you all read the same books, watch the same Ted talks, hire the same consultants and use the same case studies.  This is accelerated if you use benchmarking which involves watching what your competitors are doing and copying them.
Emulation gets you to parity. But when everyone does it it gets you to strategic hell.” — Herman Singh LinkedIn Post

▪️CLAPTRAP & NARCISSISM DOMINATE!

CLAPTRAP meaningless expressions still used to stake a competitive position:

BETTER, BEST, #1, LEADER, PREMIUM, MOST COMPELLING, MOST RELIABLE. GREAT TASTING. FIRST EVER, LOWEST COST, & MOST TRUSTED.

Examples…

“Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network”

“America’s Most Popular Meal Kit.”

“The smartest way to get around.”

“The simplest path to customer delight.”

▪️ASPIRATIONS INUNDATE!

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

“To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.”

“Our mission is to make the world happier and healthier

“Champions of Customer Service”

Differentiation: What’s the solution?

“THE ONLY STATEMENT” — “WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO…”

▪️️The ONLY Statement answers the question “Why should I do business with you and not your competitors?”. It is a specific expression of what YOU promise THEM and clears the roadway of narcissists, aspirationalists and CLAPTRAP artists.
▪️The ONLY Statement is binary. It either exists or it doesn’t unlike CLAPTRAP and ASPIRATIONS.
▪️The ONLY Statement is measurable unlike CLAPTRAP and ASPIRATIONS.
▪️The ONLY Statement is about THEM not YOU!. It speaks to someone else and what they need from you. It’s NOT about the value and benefits YOU think you deliver.
▪️The ONLY Statement is NOT a tactic. It’s an expression of strategy. It exists to serve a strategic purpose and must have a Strategic Game Plan to provide context for it.

The ONLY Statement Process

#1. Declare your growth goals — HOW BIG do you want to be?

#2. Determine the Customer Groups that have the potential to deliver your growth goals — WHO do you intend to SERVE? Focus on the critical few Groups; avoid mass market thinking here.

#3. Determine what the WHO CARES about, not what they “need”. The “need” space typically has many competitors and prices are forced downward making it tough to maintain healthy margins. Definitely a place you don’t want to hang out.

If, on the other hand, you are able to discover what your WHO CRAVES, DESIRES, COVETS AND LUSTS FOR, you will find few competitors and the ability to charge higher prices because people are generally willing to pay more to satisfy their emotional appetites.

Have a conversation with your WHO to uncover what they CRAVE. “What keeps you awake at night?” to a business is a great way to start the discovery process.
On the consumer side, gentle probes around their lifestyle will yield the desired result.

#4. Draft your ONLY Statement—“We are the ONLY ones who…”—by either matching your existing skills and competencies with the CRAVINGS of the WHO or by defining what you NEED TO BE in order to satisfy their CRAVINGS.

To the latter point, you may have to reframe your business to be able to deliver what your WHO CRAVES because you’re currently devoid of the required capabilities to do it.

“Lawn Care Services Co. is the ONLY service partner who delivers personalized home care services to homeowners.”

“Marine Co is the ONLY complete service partner committed to delivering solutions to grow a boat dealer’s business.”

#5. “Unpack” your ONLY Statement. Provide more detail on some of the words and phrases contained in your ONLY to enhance the understanding of exactly what it means.
This granularity is critical in order to avoid the CLAPTRAP syndrome and be able to communicate it to your WHO in clear concise terms.

In the Lawn Care Services ONLY Statement, the unpacking exercise could look like this:

▪️By “service partner” we mean…
▪️By “personalized” we mean…
▪️By “home care services” we mean…
▪️By “homeowners” we mean…

Don’t be afraid to provide too much unpacking information. The more detail you provide the clearer it is and the easier it is to communicate to your employees and your WHO.

#6. Treat your ONLY as a draft. Your ONLY Statement is never done, it’s always a draft and will need to be tweaked when circumstances change — competitor moves, customer behavior, economic fluctuations, political policies.

Be prepared to shift ONLY emphasis when you spot changes.

#7. Test your ONLY. Before patting yourself on the back for the great work you’ve done, TEST your ONLY Statement to make sure it accurately addresses what your WHO CRAVES. Talk to a selected number of the WHO directly and discuss it with your frontline employees.

If it’s not relevant to what your WHO CRAVES, keep working on it until it works for THEM.

There is so much clutter out there on “The Brand Promise” and “Unique Selling Propositions” that do little but propagate the differentiation problem.

They don’t establish differentiation because they communicate what YOU think about YOU.

Breakaway to The ONLY Statement. Why? Because I invented it and it took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES!

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 4.29.24 at 05:38 am by Roy Osing
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April 22, 2024

How Being Boring Will Make You Extremely Successful

How Being Boring Will Make You Extremely Successful.

It seems that often businesses forget that it’s the simple things that breed success, like being boring and keeping their promises.

It’s a human thing: make me a promise, keep it and I’ll remember that you’re honest and I will continue to do business with you. And, I’ll mention you to others.

This strategy seems too simple, but many organizations actually fall short of following through with what they say they’re going to do to their customers.

This is a travesty, and it’s an important reason why businesses don’t achieve the results they expect.

What “being boring” means

— Deliver what you promise all day everyday.

Always keep your promises if you want to create a loyal base of customers.

— Always meet the customer’s expectations.
— Do the basic things right. You don’t have to be flashy.
— Pay attention to detail.
— Be consistent.
— Boring is an element of Humanity which is missing in so many organizations.

Why being boring is important for businesses

Being boring is an essential element of developing customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty = Deliver your Core Service flawlessly (getting it right all the time is “boring”) + Create a breathtaking service experience + Have a Service Recovery Strategy for when you screw a customer over (and you will).

If Core Service is NOT consistently delivered without a glitch, the loyalty-building process cannot be started.

But don’t assume that being boring on its own will create customer loyalty because it won’t.

BEING BORING IS A DISSATISFIER.

If you are boring—aka meeting customer expectations—they give you a “C” on your service Report Card because they expected that.
And trying to exceed expectations by improving your Core Service won’t work as a loyalty-building tactic because for Core Service the best you can do is earn a “C”.

Save your money and make investments in the Service Experience.

But if you are NOT boring and you break promises, you get an “F” on your Report Card, customers rant to others how crummy you are and storm away from you.

You cannot create a “gasp-worthy” service experience with anyone if you’ve broken your Core Service Promise (Missed or late delivery, lost luggage, defective product etc.)

How being boring gives a business a competitive advantage

Because being boring—a.k.a—delivering your Core Service flawlessly all the time—is the foundation of the loyalty building process.

“IF YOU’RE NOT BORING, YOU’RE DONE (OR SOON WILL BE!)”

You cannot make loyalty-building moves (creating delightful service experiences for people) when they’re angry because you’ve broken your Core Service promise to them.

There are few (if any) businesses that include “keeping promises” as a Core Value of their organization, and therefore have “boring” as a key strategic driver of how they behave when it comes to customer engagement. If you have it, you’ll be unique.

By focusing on making the delivery of your Core Service immaculate, you will likely be the ONLY One in your space with a leg up on architecting a loyalty-building customer engagement process leading to gasp-worthy serving experiences.

Few organizations pay attention to “The Customer Basics”. They are too busy fussing with razzle-dazzle technology and applying the tactic of the day—AI, App’s for this, App’s for that—which offer little strategic value in terms of differentiating themselves from their competitors.

The type leadership required to be boring

— Build a Boring Culture where keeping promises is a Core Value of the organization.

— Develop “How can I help?” Serving Leaders who identify and remediate the “pinch points” in your product or service delivery processes that prevent employees from keeping promises made to customers.

— Recruit and keep Frontline Focused Leaders who are constantly listening and responding to matters they raise regarding service delivery systems and processes.

— Have “Detail Freak” Leaders with an eye for small details. Delivery system breakdowns usually occur from small causes; you need leaders who understand what boring is, and are able to spot small friction points that get in the way of flawless delivery of Core Service.

How I was a boring leader in the company you took to A BILLION?

▪️We build a Service Strategy around “Promises”. It read…

“We are easy to do business with. We care.
We provide and support innovative quality solutions.
We make promises and always keep them.
If we fall short of our strategy, RECOVERY will be our #1 priority.”

▪️ Measure customer perception relentlessly.

▪️“Cleanse the Inside” program to eradicate friction and pinch points in delivery systems.

▪️My “Leadership By Serving Around” style allowed me to expose process flow issues.

▪️I held regular “Bear Pit” Workshops to discover Core Service breakdown points.

▪️We engaged customers in re-engineering Core Service processes rather than making the exercise an inside expert view of what was needed to make processes more effective from a customer engagement point of view.

▪️Established cross functional process owners with an owner for each critical service delivery process across all functional departments. I was able to establish “single

If you want to develop a sustainable base of loyal customers, BE BoRING.

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 4.22.24 at 05:36 am by Roy Osing
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