Be Different or be dead

April 14, 2011

Why 5-year business plans should make you sick and tired

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Why 5-year business plans should make you sick and tired.

Why do organizations still produce a 5 year business plan?

Have you ever seen the 5th year of a 5-year business plan year show up? I haven’t. Next year it becomes the 4th year; following that the 3rd year. And so it goes.

Yet it amazes me how much time and energy people put into trying to make the 5th year (and the 3rd and 4th for that matter) as “accurate”  as they can.

People seem to want to wring out the last 10% of perfection in the latter plan years; it seems to be the guiding principle.

Doesn’t this strike you as a bit dysfunctional? A waste of the most precious commodity we have - time? Who the hell knows what year 5 will look like?

All we really know is that it will be different from what we think it will be from today’s vantage point. So why try to plan with precision in year 5?

Spending a whole lot of time trying to determine with any degree of accuracy what years 4 and 5 look like in any business plan is a waste of time and it keeps you from getting stuff done; from executing NOW!

If you must feed the animals who lust after a five year wild ass guess (because that’s what it is), at least minimize how much time you spend on the outlying years.

Five minutes ought to do it.

Want to invest your time wisely? Reduce your business plan to 24 months and get on with executing.

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

• Posted 4.14.11 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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March 28, 2011

Why surprising customers is better than satisfying their needs

Source: Unsplash

Why surprising customers is better than satisfying their needs.

What’s the focus of your business plan? I expect that somewhere in your strategy it refers to satisfying customer needs.

The challenge, however, is that most people already have what they need, and to be a needs satisfier is a tough assignment.
The better mousetrap approach usually leads to offering a lower price. Follow this route and you’re CoMMON, FoRGETTABLE and InVISIBLE.

Should you meet customer expectations? Where’s the juice in that? I am not blown away when someone gives me what I am expecting.
Fall below my expectations and I am annoyed and I leave telling all and sundry how crumby you are.

Meet my expectations and I am satisfied but no more than that (how many of you are thrilled when the flight you are on actually arrives at the correct destination?)

Should you exceed customer expectations? This is at least notionally the right course of action. Go beyond what I expect. Give me more of what you led me to believe I was getting and I might talk you up you to others.

The real power has little to do with what people expect; rather it involves giving them what they don’t expect; to surprise them.

The surprise strategy is effective in dazzling someone, WOWING them, delighting them, and blowing them away and results in converting them to devoted fans who are prepared to spread your word far and wide.

Here are examples of what you can do to introduce the surprise factor in your organization.

▪️Know the customers secrets.
Secrets represent the fuel for the unexpected strategy. If you knew I loved Italian red wine, you might have the ability to present me with a gift should the opportunity arise.

▪️Opportunities flourish in any organization to deploy secrets.
Marketing — enhance one of your packages with a secret you discover about a particular group of customers.

▪️ Customer Service — when a service blunder occurs and you have screwed a customer around, build your recovery action plan around the secrets you know about them.

▪️ Product fulfillment — take a page out of Zappos’ book and send the product ahead of when it was promised.

But don’t use the same surprise element for every customer. Personalize the surprise and you will have the customer for life.

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

• Posted 3.28.11 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
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February 21, 2011

5 simple ways to craft your unique competitive advantage

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5 simple ways to craft your unique competitive advantage.

If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re dead. If you’re UNReMARKABLE, you’re invisible. If you’re an indistinguishable member of the competitive herd you go unnoticed.

And the end is near.

The ONLY Statement is your way out. It’s your way of clearly defining how your organization is different from the competition, and is expressed by “We are the only ones that…”.

Here are the critical five steps to create the ONLY statement.

1. WHO to serve?

Decide WHO you are going to serve; the customers you intend to target.

You can’t be all things to all people. You don’t have unlimited resources. You need to focus your efforts on those customers who love what you do and who have the potential to satisfy your financial growth goals.

2. WHAT value will you deliver?

Determine WHAT you intend to deliver to your chosen customer groups. You must deliver VALUE (it’s about what your customers receive, not what you produce), BE relevant (you had better address the top wants and desires of the customers you are going after).
And and BE Unique (you must be the ONLY ones who do what you do).

3. Craft your ONLY Statement

“We are the only ones that….”. If you are able to express the relevant and unique value you deliver to your target customer group, you will have a competitive claim that your competitors won’t be able to touch.

4. Validate your ONLY Statement

Before you start using your ONLY claim, however, reach out to your frontline people and the WHO. Check with them to determine if they see your ONLY Statement as relevant (does it address the top wants of your target customers?) AND true (do you really deliver what you say you do?).

Don’t get carried away with your own thinking. Do a reality check before pronouncing your ONLY to the world.

5. Strike your action plan

Develop an action plan to implement your ONLY. Test it for relevance and believability. Communicate it internally. Translate it into behaviors you expect people to exhibit every day. Include these behaviors into your performance management system to make it matter.

Compensate folks on the ONLY behaviours. Decide on the critical few things you need to do in order to implement your ONLY Statement.

There you have it. The lens through which you can grow your organization and stand-out from all others.

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

• Posted 2.21.11 at 10:59 am by Roy Osing
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February 17, 2011

How to build your business plan around chaos

Source: Unsplash

Your business plan must be built around the chaos of the times; it must be execution driven.

Your planning process must fit the realities organizations are confronted with these days. Volatility. Randomness. Chaos. Unpredictability. Relentless change

Yet in spite of these dynamics, traditional Business Planning 101 is still advocated by educators and is used by most organizations. SWOTS, in-depth issues analysis, predictability modelling and mathematical assessment of alternatives pervade the planning process.

The objective seems to be to seek the last bit of perfection in the plan and then assume that it will be effectively executed as written.

This is a big mistake. Nothing ever turns out the way you planned. Nothing.

Nothing is ever perfect and trying to seek the 100% solution is unproductive in any case.

The planning model to fit current times must be flexible. It must accommodate unexpected change. It must achieve results. It must generate enthusiasm . It must scare the pants off the competition.

Here are three things you can do to to make your planning process more relevant:

▪️ Get your plan just about right —  It will never be perfect so why bother?
Get it directionally right. Don’t tie yourself down to a specific outcome when there are so many unknowns that influence it. Be flexible to pivot when you need to and your original vision is no longer relevant.

▪️ Execute flawlessly — Take your imperfect plan and be brilliant at executing it. Spend 80% of your time figuring out how to implement it and 20% determining it’s essence.
It is a failure of leadership that plans fall short on execution.

▪️ Learn and adjust on the run — Learn what’s working and not working through execution. And adjust your plan based on this learning.

Build in a feedback loop so you get real time information on whether or not your expectations are being achieved.

Get comfortable with the fact that your future is uncertain.

Get comfortable with imprecision. With a bit of vagueness. With the fact that you can iterate yourself to success if you pay attention to your results and learn from them.

Execution driven planning is what is needed to distinguish yourself from the competitive herd.

Take the step.

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

• Posted 2.17.11 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
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