November 7, 2020

5 proven ways to keep your clients coming back

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As a business owner, professional, or agency leader, the most important asset you can cultivate is happy clients. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling marketing support or SEO skills; without clients that are willing to vouch for your business, you’ll struggle to achieve your goals.

Unfortunately, while many business owners know that they need to dedicate time to find as many clients as possible, they often forget that the journey isn’t over after someone makes a purchase.

Here are some insights on how you can build a long and fruitful relationship with clients, keep them coming back and enhance your business in the process.

Always be helpful

When you’re trying to build a reputation for your company or brand, the most important thing you can do is demonstrate your value to your audience.
Just because you can’t necessarily say “yes” to every project a client brings your way doesn’t mean that you can’t offer assistance.

If you’re in a time crunch and can’t accept a job from a client, offer suggestions on where they can go for help elsewhere. This could mean sending customers to your competitors at times or teaching them how to solve some of their issues on their own.

It may sound counterintuitive, but remember that suggesting an alternative for your customers will be better for your reputation than trying to rush through a project and delivering poor results.

Understand the path to purchase

Building a positive relationship with your audience means understanding the journey they go through with your brand.

You probably have an established path from discovery to purchase in the form of a sales funnel. But your relationship with the client shouldn’t stop after they hand over the money.

Consider how you can deliver extra value after you’ve completed a project. Can you suggest some maintenance strategies? Are there other items your client might need to consider to succeed with the services you sold them?

This helps to form the foundations for a long-lasting relationship. You may not be providing those extra services or supplement products, but showing your customer you want them to succeed will make them feel like you always have their best interest in mind.

Demonstrate your thought leadership

Customers want to maintain relationships with companies that can give them value – not just businesses that are constantly asking for their money. Aside from regularly advertising your products and services on your website, you should also be using your digital presence as a place to showcase your thought leadership.

Write regular blogs and articles where you discuss important topics that are relevant to your industry and the customers you serve. Take advantage of opportunities to appear on popular podcasts or speak at local events.

Show your clients that you’re up-to-date on the latest industry changes and trends. They’ll appreciate your continuous effort to deliver high-quality services.

Be honest and authentic

Whenever you’re planning a price change, predicting issues with deadlines, or you think you’re going to have to apologize for a mistake, be up-front and genuine about it. Relationships are built on trust, and that’s what your clients expect from you.

Businesses today are susceptible to a number of threats, be it from natural disasters, disruptions to the supply chain, or IT-related issues. While you can’t completely curb every potential disaster, you can prepare your business so that you can quickly fix any major issues that happen.

Make it a point to include transparent communication with clients in your disaster and recovery plan. You don’t want them to find out about a data breach from the media.

In the age of social media and the always-on digital landscape, your customers can learn virtually anything they need to know about you. It’s better to be honest with them from the beginning if you can.

Everyone can make mistakes, but if you try to downplay them, your clients will wonder what else you’re withholding from them.

Make customers feel like part of the family

Finally, remember to reward your customers for sticking with you and giving you their loyalty. This doesn’t just mean setting up a loyalty program where you can regularly dish out discount codes and other gifts to your customers – although that can be helpful.

Sometimes, making customers feel special means giving them access to things like exclusive VIP events or shipping arrangements that are different from the competition.

You may even decide to set up an affiliate system where your most loyal customers can refer their friends in exchange for rewards. This will make your most valued clients feel like an important part of the team.

Make sure your customers also know how to connect with you whenever they have a problem. If your audience needs help with something, they should be able to reach you on the channels they use most often – including social media.

Strengthen Your Customer Connections

Building a long-standing relationship with your clients is how you set your business up for constant success. If you can give your clients a professional experience that they fall in love with, you can rest assured that they’ll keep coming back to your company in the future.

Repeat customers spend up to 300% more than their one-time purchasing peers. Plus, it’s much easier to get an existing customer to convert again than to make a sale from scratch.

Using the tips above, think about how you can make your customers feel special. They are an indispensable part of your business. You should treat them with the utmost care if you want your business to run successfully for a long time to come.

— Michelle Laurey works as a VA for small businesses. She loves talking business, and productivity, and share her experience with others. Outside her keyboard, she spends time with her Kindle library or binge-watching Billions. Her superpower? Vinyasa flow! Talk to her on Twitter

• Posted 11.7.20 at 05:54 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

October 19, 2020

14 common hazards that prevent your career success from growing

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14 common hazards that prevent your career success from growing.

What’s preventing you from reaching your career goals? I’ve seen many people achieve beyond their wildest expectations and I’ve witnessed individuals fall short of realizing their dreams.

Why are some successful and others are not?

My conclusions are based on observing over many years that individuals who are not able to manoeuvre through the following pitfalls tend to underachieve while those who avoid them perform better and realize greater success.

1. Your competitive strategy is ineffective

The competition for career opportunities is more intense now than ever before and it shows no signs of waning. Fewer job opportunities and more people hunting for those opportunities results in raging battles to determine the winner.

Winners have a specific strategy to compete with the crowd for these limited opportunities. They have perfected their career game plan and have created a personal ONLY statement that separates them from everyone else.

If your career is stalling, it might be that either you don’t have a personal ONLY statement or you have one that doesn’t work; it’s not strong enough — it doesn’t make you stand out from others in a way that is relevant to the needs of the organization.

Remember, your ONLY statement should always be a draft because you are constantly testing its validity with your stakeholder groups that see you in action every day. Keep tweaking it based on the feedback you receive, the new skills and competencies you acquire and on the changing needs of the organization.

2. You’re invisible

Some people are invisible to those around them, particularly the career decision makers.
Get noticed in the crowd of people all looking to advance themselves.
You must be competent in your current role, of course, but if you are indistinguishable from your colleagues you have no way of being on a decision maker’s radar for job opportunities.

It’s interesting that getting noticed is uncomfortable for many people; they don’t like drawing attention to themselves. It’s almost like we’ve been taught at an early age that it’s somehow inappropriate to do things that make us stand out in our class — it makes us arrogant and narcissistic. Well, you need to get over that if that’s how you feel.

Leaders who are the custodians of opportunities in an organization must have you in their line of sight as a high potential individual who can contribute a great deal to the organization and who should be given the chance to do so.

There’s no prize if you are a genius and no one knows it but your mom.

Develop a ‘be visible’ plan that thoughtfully and respectfully unmasks you in front of the organization and presents your achievements in a simple, factual and truthful way.

Show your stuff in a way that is not merely an ego expression but rather a truthful narrative on what you do day in and day out to execute the strategy of the organization.

3. You’re not creating enough value

Achieve results that people care about. The focus must be on the benefits you create for the organization (and for people) as opposed to delivering a project or beating an objective due date for example.

It’s admirable that you completed your project two weeks ahead of schedule but what’s more important are the benefits you delivered to customers or employees or shareholders earlier than expected.

Realize that the project or task you’ve been given is just the internal vehicle for adding value to ‘the outside’; keep your eyes on your contribution to the marketplace within which your organization operates.

By the way, if you are successful with this approach other organizations might notice, and you may suddenly be presented with more career options.

4. Differences don’t define you

You’re perceived to be the same as others around you; you blend in.
To move forward, you need to determine how you can be different from others; how you can be the ONLY one that does what you do (see my article on creating your career game plan).

If you’re not different than everyone else in some meaningful way — in a way that contributes to the goals and objectives of the organization — you will be viewed as nothing more than a common member of the herd and will have difficulty achieving a breakthrough in your career.

The crowd is a home for those who like the safety and comfort of not taking risks; who follow what others do and who love the consistency of crowd activity which lacks up-and-down variability — these attributes don’t apply to individuals who have successfully moved upward in any organization.

5. You’re a copycat

As a sequel to the above point, you place too much emphasis on copying others under the guise of innovation.

Copying best practices and doing what best in class organizations do runs rampant in organizations today. When faced with a ‘How should we do this?’ challenge, the first response by many professionals is to find a best practise and try to copy and implement it.

Copying is the antithesis of creativity.

Successful people don’t automatically turn to a solution that someone else has thought of and used; they search for a unique approach that stands out from the crowd of best practices to become the best practice and the organization that others see as the benchmark to copy.

It’s one thing to learn from what others do and then morph it into something different that adds a personal twist; it’s quite another to copy what someone else does word-for-word and expect some miraculous improvement in one’s career. It won’t happen.

Don’t be lured into believing that emulation is the route to anything else but continuing to blend into the crowd with lacklustre performance like everyone else.

Sameness begets mediocrity.

You must find your own way to break the mould of commonness and it doesn’t have to be complicated:
    ➖ invent your own unique way to solve problems;
    ➖ do more of what was asked;
    ➖ hang out with ‘weird’ people and see how they deal with life’s challenges;
    ➖ go the opposite direction to what is expected;
    ➖ use trusted external resources for added credibility to what you do inside the organization;
    ➖ launch recognition events for colleagues who have helped you deliver results;
    ➖ launch additional projects from your original task without being told to do it.

The important thing is to add your own twist to whatever you do; make it a different part of your personal brand. Every opportunity you are given is a gift to be different; the successful ones know it and they gratefully accept it.

I have a trick to keep my be different mantra constantly in front of me. I ask myself ‘How can I do this differently?’ as the context for how I approach a new project, role (or a vacation with my grandchildren for that matter).

6. You talk more than you do

You’re viewed as a thinker; someone who loves to study and analyze things as opposed to someone who’s a doer.

A little less conversation, a little more action please — Elvis Presley

Career success isn’t about intent; it’s about getting stuff done in the trenches where life is messy and people never behave the way you expect them to.

It’s easy to declare what you want to achieve and sell your idea on its theoretical merits (every good idea is only a theoretical possibility until it achieves results).
But in the final analysis, unless the notion actually produces something it’s basically useless.

Getting it done relies largely on the right hemisphere of the brain where emotion, passion, tenacity and perseverance live, not the left brain that houses logic and intelligence.

Implementation practitioners understand that if they are not prepared to get dirty in the trenches, their idea will be lost — Roy, dirty hands

Expending emotional energy to overcome roadblocks and barriers is the key ingredient to seeing a good idea successfully implemented.

My rule of thumb is to spend 20% of your time on the idea — get it sorta right — and 80% of your time on implementing it and tweaking it on the run based on what you learn as you implement it.

7. Your network needs a do-over

There are two potential issues with someone’s personal network: one, it can be too small and/or two, it can be of low quality.

On the former, some people simply don’t have enough contacts; their network is too small to effectively exploit the potential opportunities that are out there.

A broad network exposes more possibilities; a narrow network is more restrictive and is likely to present chances in fewer disciplines to choose from.

To avoid this pitfall, develop a strategy to expand your personal network. Remember to target quality contacts rather than trying to acquire arbitrary social media connections.

You will get a higher return (measured by the potential to supply you with job opportunities) from 100 quality LinkedIn connections, for example, than 1,000 Twitter followers or FB friends.

Also look to build alliances both within and outside the organization. Successful individuals rarely do it on their own; they need people around them who support their efforts and talk them up to others. Having colleagues spread your word is essential to being noticed and rewarded for your efforts.

It takes a community to create a winner, so be prepared to devote time and energy into creating communities of support and follower-ship.

Make a point of meeting someone — or ZOOMing them — for happy hour as a way to maintain relationships and update them on your current activities.

In terms of the quality of your network, perhaps your network is failing you and needs to be refreshed — the contacts you have are out of date in terms of the support they can provide you.

A productive network should be able to provide you with information you can use to progress your career because generally whoever possesses the most reliable information is in the best position to outdo everyone around them — they do the right thing quicker. And success usually follows.

Inventory your connections:
    ➖ Do you have people connected with areas critical to your career plan? 
    ➖ How many of your LinkedIn connections actually relate to your target position?
    ➖ Are they acquaintances or proven advocates?
    ➖ How many of your contacts have called you proactively to ask how you’re making out.
    ➖ How many of them have referred you to others?
    ➖ Have they provided you with information lately that has been useful in advancing your career agenda?

Purge your list down to the critical few people who can actually provide you with the information that could help you and who are willing to do so. And as I’ve stated above, add to the list if you have voids.

8. You rely too much on your education

Of course education is vital to success but don’t count on it to make you successful.

I look at an academic pedigree as the ante to play the career game. You need the piece of paper to play the game but it won’t guarantee you’ll win it.

Too many young professionals enter the work world expecting to be treated favourably because they have toiled for 8 years to graduate with status in a specific discipline. They feel entitled to get the opportunities that come available because of the knowledge they’ve gained.

Your academic pedigree gets you in the career game, but it doesn’t determine success.

But that’s not the way it works. Success depends on what you do with what you know; how you leverage your knowledge into amazing results for who you work for.

So take your piece of paper, suck everything you can out of it you can, and do stuff with it. The more clever you are at getting stuff done, the more successful you’ll be.

The other barrier associated with education is the tendency for everyone to approach problem solving the same way — ‘HOW compliance’.
We were taught a specific way to do things at school and we had to relentlessly comply with the academic rules leaving no room to be different.

Perhaps more effort in determining different ways of achieving results will help.

9. You have the wrong kind of mentor

Someone who is intellectually brilliant but has never done much to successfully implement a worthy solution in the real world unfortunately attracts mentees.

Young people looking for a mentor are infatuated by the number of letters behind a person’s name as opposed to the list of things they have successfully implemented in the face of chaotic market forces.

This is a huge pitfall to success because it assumes high performance comes from the intellect and it doesn’t. As I’ve said many times before, success comes from the passion and fire in the belly of individuals who are driven to achieve.

Find a mentor who has a rich history of accomplishments; someone who has demonstrated they are unafraid of getting dirty to deliver. Listen to that person rather than the IQ-ladened one.

Most young professionals look to the person who knows stuff as their source for career advice and guidance. After all, most experts have knowledge credentials posted after their names — doctorate, masters and bachelor degree designations for example — and therefore are an attractive target for young people looking for guidance.

In my experience, however, the people to look up to; those individuals who have proven they can deliver results, are the ones who should be listened to and followed.

I have never seen one of these elite practitioners, for example, use the designation ‘consistent deliverer’ or ‘doer’ after their name, but they should.

Master crafters of doing stuff.

I know many smart people who have achieved less than their potential because they put all their trust in the way things should work — based on theory — as opposed to pouring their energy into finding a way to make them work in the hard realities of people bias and internal politics.

You might be enlightened and lucky enough to amass a stable of doer mentors but you can still run into trouble if you don’t use them effectively. And that generally requires that you spend a lot of time with them.
And when the rate of change around you is extreme— like COVID-time for example — it is essential you are constantly with your mentors.

They need to hear the latest version of your career plan, the competition you face and the setbacks you have experienced. Ask for their comments and insights on actions you could take.

Check your calendar. If you are not setting time aside to meet a mentor at least once a week, get on it and book some appointments for the next 3 months.

10. You’re not keeping up

Some people fall victim to believing that there are limits to what you have to learn to achieve success; that once you have amassed a certain amount of knowledge you can stop the learning process.

It’s almost like they believe the momentum created by what they’ve learned up to now will carry them into the future.

Wrong! Success is achieved not by a ‘one hit wonder’ but by a continuous stream of accomplishments over the long term. It’s a function of consistently performing at a high level step by step, day after day.

And the only way long term a high level of consistency can be attained is by continuously learning something new; you need to find a way to stream new knowledge into your head constantly.

11. You tend to rely on what worked yesterday

What got you here will surely get you to where you need to go, right? After all, you’ve been successful doing certain things well and it paid off, so why wouldn’t it continue to pay off in the future?

The truth is, if your new challenge had all the properties of the past challenges you successfully defeated, then maybe you could get by with sticking to the practices that worked for you then.

But that’s not the real world. Things change and there’s no such thing as a challenge that looks the same as yesterday. Pandemics occur and completely change the landscape of the world. New competitors enter. Technology disruption happens. Customer demands change.

Nothing stays the same.

If you really think sticking to your tried and true strategy and approach to your job will keep working into an environment of constant change and unpredictability, good luck with that. It won’t.

12. You’re not clear on your career goal

A productive career — one that steadily advances — has a certain signature; it has clarity around the specific position an individual is targeting. And it is time specific; it has a 24-month period to achieve the objective.

For example, “I intend to be director of marketing for XYX organization by March 1, 2022” is a focused career plan objective which can inform the action plan to actually see it come to fruition.

When this clarity of purpose is missing, the actions individuals take are confused; they are not measured towards a goal and their intentions are often vague and inconsistent. People are busy but they can’t get the meaningful traction they need to make progress.

To relentlessly keep moving forward, your career plan needs to be focused on your desired outcome. It’s the only way your actions will have purpose and can be measured for their effectiveness.

13. You’re not aligned with the strategy of the organization

In a perfect world, every employee in an organization is homeomorphically aligned with the game plan it has set in motion.

Each person knows specifically what is expected of them and delivers results that contribute to moving the organization forward on its chosen path. And they behave in a manner consistent with the values the organization has decided to adopt in terms of how people work together to achieve those results.

People who excel in achieving the strategic objectives of the organization typically have a successful career; those who out of alignment with them do not.

So if you sense your in the stall mode, check to ensure that your priorities are directly aligned with leadership’s strategic intent. Take the initiative to ask them if you are working on the right projects; revise your work plan accordingly.

Finally, tell leadership what you’ve done; they will be impressed and you will be climbing again sooner than you think.

14. You’re too picky

Do anything asked of you and do it with eagerness and an open mind. I have seen many high-potential people fall by the wayside because they were picky about what they did to the point that they refused to take on certain projects because they didn’t want to set themselves up for failure by trying to achieve something they felt they were not qualified to do.

Unfortunately, their actions were perceived as an unwillingness to help the organization achieve its strategic goals, to take on the personal risk necessary to deliver even though they may not be perfectly qualified.

And they found themselves in the camp of individuals who were never again asked to lead projects of a strategic nature; their career stalled.

The point is, upwardly mobile people are expected to overreach every once in a while, to go for something that is beyond their capability. They treat the opportunity as a source of learning and growth and are okay with the inherent personal risk involved.

Weaving your way to success through any organization is a challenge, with hazards and pitfalls awaiting you around every corner. But there are simple practical ways to avoid them and achieve the success you seek. It’s not rocket science.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 10.19.20 at 06:29 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

October 11, 2020

My 50+ audacious podcast shows will help you and your business soar

Check out these podcast shows—over 75 now!—where I break down my seventh book, Audacious Unheard-of Ways, and show you how to grow your business and your career.

***NEW! In this episode Chris Dubois and I break down the Moves I made and the Methods I used to incorporate the right business toolset to stand apart from the herd and get a BILLION DOLLARS IN SALES! Unbound

***NEW! “Business plans are traditionally too expensive, they take too much time, they’re too rigid, and they’re not properly implemented. Roy Osing advises on his Strategic Game Plan with a rule of three: focus on the three things that will produce 80% of your results.
Beware, though, of being diverted by what he calls the “Yummy incoming”, the distractions that will pull you away from your game plan.” — Chris Ashmore, for Business Essentials Daily. Don’t Be Distracted by YUMMY!

***NEW! “We All Live in Red Oceans” podcast on Business is Blumin!
Some people preach that you should look for a “Blue Ocean” where you have ZERO competition. That would be nirvana, but for most business leaders, we have to learn how to win in “Red Oceans” with hungry competitors and powerful customers.
Listen and learn how I not only survived in a Red Ocean, I grew a startup business to A BILLION IN SALES!

***NEW! “Osing’s mantra—be different or be dead—has been the backbone of his audacious journey, driving him to constantly innovate to create ripples of value for his customers.
Osing dissects the magic of differentiation through offering customer experiences that customers can’t resist while ensuring that you’re the only game in town offering it.
This discussion is peppered with personal encounters of working with small companies, outlining the significance of differentiation, and the power of prioritizing the customer experience above all else.
Osing also dives into the world of audacious Leadership by Serving Around and how this seemingly simple idea can pave the way to success in business.” The Power of Differentiation and Audacious Leadership

***NEW! In this Mindset for Growth Show, we unpack my crazy secrets to growing a startup TO A BILLION IN SALES. They’re not complicated but they work.
Pick one gem to try and see what happens! From a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES | Part Two

***NEW! “Ready for a jaw-dropping journey into the world of audacious entrepreneurship? I just had a mind-blowing chat on the Grownlearn Podcast with none other than Roy Osing, the genius who took a startup to a BILLION in annual sales!
We spilled the beans on “The Audacious Entrepreneur’s Guide: Roy Osing’s Journey to a Billion in Annual Sales.” From crafting bold brands to tackling those make-or-break business moments, Roy’s story is nothing short of extraordinary.”

From a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES | Part One.
What’s the motivation to BE DiFFERENT? Why go on this “painful” journey? Why put up with the backstabbing? Why be The ONLY One? The Mindset Growth Podcast.

In this episode, I discuss why most organizations are too myopic in their #sales #strategy, pushing monthly or quarterly goals rather than embracing a long-term strategy for effective sales. I share my ‘customer report card’ Move to refocus sales teams on nurturing the customer rather than foisting pushy sales techniques. Business Essentials Daily

In this Chasing Happiness episode, we strip the layers of a journey that transformed a startup into a billion-dollar powerhouse.
Roy Osing, a maverick in the business world, shares his unfiltered, raw insights on what it takes to scale the heights of entrepreneurial success. From laughable mistakes to strategic masterstrokes, get ready for a rollercoaster ride of emotions and lessons.” Turning Bold Ideas Into Billions

The Audacious Unheard-of Ways of Using Practical and Common Sense Strategies to Drive Success, The Disruptive Minds Podcast

“Special guest Roy Osing shares very thought-provoking and audacious ideas to help you differentiate yourself from your competition, so you can achieve your goals sooner rather than later and maybe even exceed what you thought possible. This is a must listen to interview.”, The Accountability Podcast

Audacious Leadership is all about breaking away from the normal way leaders practice their art. In this ‘Biz Gone Social’ show we explore the Moves I made to successfully grow a startup to A BILLION IN SALES! Biz Gone Social Podcast

“Roy discusses the importance of breaking out of the “sameness” that businesses have accepted as the norm and standing out to be the ONLY ONE doing……(fill in the blank). We discuss practical ways to make that happen and touch on some of the points from Roy’s many books.”, Customer First Podcast

“This week I was lucky enough to interview a very cool and articulate guy named Roy Osing. One of the highlights of Roy’s illustrious career was driving a company to a BILLION in annual sales. Roy documented his journey in a book - not the ordinary how-to textbook type - but based on what he did differently to actually grow a business to a billion in annual sales.
Let’s fly all the way to Vancouver and explore Roy Osing’s ocean of thoughts through his book ‘Be Different or Be Dead’!”,  The First Customer Podcast

A Journey to A BILLION in Annual Sales. “Join me this week as I talk with Roy Osing, Author of “BE DiFFERENT or be dead,” about his journey to bring his company to $1 billion in annual sales. Roy and I talk about how he reached this milestone through learning on the run, “leadership by serving around” and building trust and consistency within his organization. Roy shares many tips that he has implemented throughout the years and encourages front line recognition and a strong culture to create a successful team.” The Positive Polarity Podcast

From a Startup to a Billion Dollar Sales. “In this episode, host Michael Brooks dives deep into the world of business success with Roy Osing, a renowned business advisor with a remarkable journey. Roy takes us through the audacious strategies he employed to take a small data company and grow it into a billion dollar industry behemoth. If you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or aspiring leader looking for practical, real-world strategies to scale your business, this episode is a goldmine of insights you can’t afford to miss!”. The Scaling Edge Podcast

Growing Business at an Audacious Level, Your Spectacular Life
The Audacious Unheard-of Ways Roy Osing took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES. “Roy provides tangible tips and frameworks for developing effective business strategies, leading teams, standing out from the competition and more. You’ll come away with new perspectives and motivation to take your business to the next level.” The Profit Answer Man Show
Famous Interview with Roy Osing. “ Roy is a stellar man with a grand vision and unique walk .. very cool cat….” Joe Dimino, Neon Jazz

Unleashing Audacity: Being DiFFERENT and Dominating the Market. “ This is an episode you won’t want to miss, packed with practical advice, proven strategies, and audacious ways to break away from the norm. Join us in the conversation and learn how to stand out in today’s competitive business landscape. So, tune in, get inspired, and learn how to be audaciously different.” Financial Freedom for Physicians
How a Guy Took A Startup To A Billion In Sales. “Dive into the remarkable journey of Roy Osing, a true powerhouse in the business world. Roy has seen it all and done it all.”, The Pete Primeau Show
Breaking Away From The Herd: Why it’s critical to break away from the herd, be different and the key elements of an audacious leader, The Audacious Living Podcast
How to be the ONLY ONE who does what you do, In Turn Podcast
How to Avoid Being Forgotten, Design your Legacy
Keys to a Great Sales Team, Business Essentials Daily
Standing out. Defining the Fox. Being The ONLY One, Remarkable People

Your Mistakes Could Win You Business, Business Essentials Daily
Differentiation. Why? Why now? Ian Selbie Sales Pro
Being Memorable with Dazzling Customer Service, Business Essentials Daily
What’s Wrong With Blue Ocean Strategy? Business Essentials Daily
How to Build a Remarkable Personal Brand, Author to Authority
How to Stand Out, Spark The Genius

You Can’t Sell People on Ideas Alone, You Must Deliver Results, Time to Shine Today
Building a Unique One-of-a-Kind Business Strategy, Business Essentials Daily
Executing Bold Moves to Unlock Billion-Dollar Growth, The UNLOCKED Show
A Journey to A BILLION IN SALES, From Embers to Excellence
Roy Osing Helps People Cut Through The Noise, Life’s Essential Ingredients

Don’t run with the herd! Business Essentials Daily
How Being Different is the Real Path to Success, Hurricane H
Small Business Mobes for Unbelievable Growth and Success, Time to Thrive Show
How to be Audaciously Different, The KAJ Masterclass LIVE Podcast
Why Compliance Sucks, , Coaching in Session

I’m a guy who took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES, The 12|30 Podcast
Win In A Competitive World With Strategic Differentiation, CPA Marketing Genius
Roy Osing, The Original “How To” Guy, Online for Authors
How to Outperform Your Competition and Achieve Astonishing Growth, Biz Help for You
How I Took a Startup to a Billion in Sales, SalesPop!

The Contrarian Leader, The Introspective Manager
How to Use Books as a Strategic Tool to Standout, The Author Factor
How to Build Your ONLY Statement to Declare Your Uniqueness, Mind for Success
How to Build a Remarkable Personal Brand, Stuck in My Mind

Satisfy Cravings not Needs, Business Essentials Daily
Avoid the Price Trap, Business Essentials Daily
Breaking Through the Noise: Building a Winning Brand that Stands Out From Everybody Else, Curate Your Success
BE DiFFERENT or be dead, Deep Conversations with Dope Individuals

Hiring people Who Like People, Business Essentials Daily
Making Your First $1 Billion, Late Boomers
Debunking Leadership Myths, Business Essentials Daily
The Audacious Communications Skills I Learned as a Leader with Roy Osing, Publicly Speaking with Peter George
Breakaway from Boring! Be Different, Be Audacious, Straight Talk About Small Business Success
Avoid the CLAPTRAP and Move to the ONLY, Weekly Wins and Losses with James Heppner

Differentiating for Success, Success for Life
Creating an ONLY Statement to Differentiate Your Organization, Lubar Executive Education
How to Differentiate your Business and YOU, Terminal Value
Being an Audacious Leader is about Breaking away NOT Pivoting, Leading to Fulfillment
How’s That for Marketing, Leadership Powered by Common Sense

To Have a Successful Career, It’s Important to be YOU, Pursuit of Relentless
It’s Not Complicated. Look Here For the Roy’s Simple Stuff That Works, Business That Matters
Don’t be #1… be the ONLY ONE, Business Essentials Daily
Behind the Numbers is a Different Leader that ‘Lights Fires in People , Behind the Numbers
Be Audacious with Roy Osing, Straight Talk No Sugar Added

Be Audacious and Different, OR Be Dead, InnovaBuzz
Roy Osing’s Leadership Rules for being Audaciously Different, Zoe Routh on Leadership
How to Break Out, Be Different and Make an Audacious Impact, Evolution of Brand
Here’s What Sales Must Do To Succeed In 2022, The Confessions of a Sales Pro
Be Different or be dead Leadership, Tech Pro Unicorn

The ONLY way to Build a Great Business, Hive with Us
From a Startup to a BILLION, Science of CX
Audacity or Death, Fire in the Belly
If Your Sales isn’t Different, it’s dead (or soon will be), The Business of Sales
Going Boldly is about Being DiFFERENT, Russ the Big Guy
Audacious Leadership - Why it’s Absolutely Critical to your Organization’s Success, Lubar Executive Education

Why Innovation Needs You Need to be an Audacious Leader, Mind the Innovation
Roy’s Unheard-of Ways to Achieve A BILLION IN SALES, Aim to Win
How to be Different and Audacious, Leadership is Changing
An Audaciously Different Brand Story, BrandAPeel: Brand Storytelling in a Digital Age
To Live Your Best Life, Live Label Free (But BE DiFFERENT), Label Free Podcast

Cheers,
Roy

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• Posted 10.11.20 at 06:23 am by Roy Osing
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October 5, 2020

5 hidden secrets a great leader can learn from the frontline

Source: Pexels

5 hidden secrets a great leader can learn from the frontline.

One of the benefits of leading many different types of organizations over my 30+ year career was having a window to observe and study other leaders.

Let’s face it, honing your leadership skills is not a one-of event; it’s a process of learning new skills that are required in the role and practising them day in and day out.

I found that looking across at how other leaders practised their craft was an excellent source of learning material; I saw what worked and didn’t work and was able to pick and choose to enhance my own repertoire of skills accordingly.

Most of what I saw in other leaders was quite pedantic. They typically followed the leader book prescribed by the experts in the field and by academics who wrote papers on the subject.
It was a rare occurrence to witness a truly different approach to what the crowd of other leaders was following.

But every once in a while I would see a leader who turned their back on traditional practices; someone who was non-compliant with what everyone believed to be a requisite for effective leadership.

They loved the frontline.

The most amazing leaders I know spend most of their time with the frontline

What I saw was a leader who was always with their frontline employees — service reps, salespeople, credit and collections people, receptionists and call center reps; the people who were on the organization’s line of execution and dealing with customers.

A leader who valued the frontline more than any other group.

They stood out because very few leaders see people down deep in the organization as a priority demanding their time.

Honouring and living with the frontline provides these benefits that enable leaders to perform head and shoulders above their peers.

1. Irritants to execution

They learn what is preventing flawless execution of the organization’s strategy; systems and process issues and other barriers that get in the way of achieving expected results.

Being face-to-face with those who have to work with the internal laws governing the customer engagement process gives them the ability to identify the grunge and dumb rules that must be eliminated to make employee jobs easier and customer service better.

In addition, this insight generally doesn’t readily come from the leader’s direct reports who either don’t know what’s going on or who want to protect their turf.
Knowledge gained from the skip level leader is invaluable and should be expected of any leader. But only the special ones get it.

2. Business plan flaws

They discover the flaws in the business plan; those elements of the strategic intent of the organization that aren’t working because there are barriers and practicalities that prevent it from being implemented in the precise way it was designed.

On paper the strategy may have looked perfect but in the naked light of day where people are involved and competitors prey, it is not possible to stay the course.

The frontline are often brutally honest about your strategy; they don’t hesitate to tell you what won’t work and the challenge for leaders is to listen to their feedback.
Listen to them and tweak the strategy to reflect the realities of execution in the field.

Old school leaders have difficulty moving off the tabled strategy and they often live to regret it.

3. Competitive activity and secrets

Leaders who are in the frontline learn what the competition is doing in real time fashion, creating the ability to take whatever evasive or opportunistic action required and to spot and attack their weakness.

Most leaders rely on traditional methods to obtain competitive intelligence. Periodic studies are conducted, findings are analyzed and action taken as appropriate.
But the process takes time; there is a lag between when the intelligence is gained and when action is taken, often nullifying its effectiveness.

Being with the frontline gives the leader a continuous stream of information on what is going on in the moment. This ability yields faster action and better results; lag time is replaced with real time response.

4. Movers and shakers

Leaders who are with the frontline constantly are able to identify people with high potential for future opportunities in the organization.

They get to see with their own eyes — as opposed to receiving reports from their direct managers or human resource folks — how certain individuals perform, their attitudes and their capabilities to offer further value.
They get to develop relationships with these people in the workplace and provide the mentoring so many need but don’t receive from leaders.

And as a result, the leader increases their personal currency and strengthens their brand as someone who is competent at spotting and developing high achievers for the benefit of the entire organization.

5. Employee engagement

By being in the face of the frontline, this leader is able to get a front row seat on what is necessary to enhance employee commitment and engagement in achieving the goals of the organization.

They don’t rely on, as their peers are forced to do, reports by specialists and other third parties in the field to advise them on what is needed to reach a higher level in employee buy-in.
They learn first hand what is needed to capture the hearts and minds of those charged with delivering results; they see what is needed; they feel what works and what doesn’t.

And they learn what works to engage one employee doesn’t necessarily work to engage another. Every person is different; everyone responds differently to motivational methods.
This leader knows that personalized methods of engagement are required for each employee, not a shrink wrapped corporate program applied to all.

6. The biggest mistake

The biggest mistake a leader can make is not be all in with the frontline where successful organizational performance is either created or destroyed.

To serve the frontline is to step out of the textbook leader herd and make an amazing contribution to their organization while those who choose to follow common leader doctrine are lost in the crowd.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 10.5.20 at 05:16 am by Roy Osing
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