Be Different or be dead

January 1, 2021

Six proven ways you can be an amazing leader

Six proven ways you can be an amazing leader.

The challenge facing a leader in today’s highly volatile economy is formidable.

It is to create an organization to stand out, not fit in; to build a truly unique enterprise that is special in the minds of its customers and feared by its competitors.

Companies that fail to break away from the competitive herd and establish themselves as unique, distinctive and remarkable to their customers fade away and eventually die.

Road kill is everywhere.

Six Acts of Leadership contains my secrets for leaders who want to create sustainable success for their organizations; who want to build something special that will be honored by their customers and loved by their employees.

Six Acts will help mediocre managers become brilliant leaders.

Audacious leaders who focus on how to execute their business plan to achieve amazing results rather than spend their time agonizing over how to make their plan more ‘perfect’ to fit the planning techniques ascribed by the academics.

Brilliant leaders create The ONLY Statement as the competitive claim for their business, that clearly separates themselves from their competitors.

Daring leaders who are hell-bent on creating memorable customer experiences for their customers.

Amazing leaders who serve their employees and make it a priority to make it easy for them to do their jobs.

Key concepts

Here are only a few never-seen-elsewhere concepts from the book:

— Build your business plan with execution in mind.
— Don’t be merely the best at what you do; be the ONLY one who does what you do.
— Shed product thinking; start thinking customer experiences.
— Focus on your existing loyal customers and stay away from deals to attract new ones.
— Satisfying others isn’t good enough; you must dazzle them.
— Pay attention to the little things; if you don’t they will destroy you.

— Get into the workplace and serve around.
— Exercise your strategy hawk role.
— For God sakes, micromanage!
— Be nosy.
— Live with the frontline.
— Have regular bear pit sessions.

— Practise your speech style.
— Copy weird people.
— Treat unexpected events as emergencies.
— How to engage your people.
— Line of sight leadership.
— Hire for goosebumps.

What some of my readers say…

“Roy’s done it again in this concise, quirky, thought-stimulating, cutting-edge and profitable book.  Open up your note-taking app and engage!” — Arthur R. Tymos, President & CEO Creation Technologies, Vancouver BC

“It’s a good fast read, power-packed with hard-core advice for today’s service providers. Following your advice, companies will learn to separate themselves from the herd and provide everlasting value by creating unique individualized customer experiences. What I like is that it’s an easy read, short, precise and focused on getting things done. I will be tweeting about it too.” — Nerio Vakil, President, Total Business Solutions, Mumbai, India

“Roy does an incredible job diagnosing one of the major challenges leaders face today -competitive mediocrity.  Being different and providing over the top customer service are not easy or inexpensive, but they are your best chance at long term success.  Roy’s work is mandatory reading for every FROGBOX Manager” — Doug Burgoyne, CEO, FROGBOX, Vancouver BC

“Roy has put in words something businesses (and governments for that matter) should all aspire to achieve - to dazzle their customers (or us as citizens). His Six Acts of Leadership provide a clear and simple roadmap to achieve a unique strategic path to sustainable success for any organisation, public or private.” — Egon de Haas, Global Director, Government & Public Services,  PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

“Six Acts of Leadership. I liked it. I liked the flow, I liked the nuggets of info condensed.” — Tina Thompson, CEO MUG Solutions, Vancouver BC

Six Acts of Leadership is available at these retailers.

Cheers,
Roy
For all of my books, check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.1.21 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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January 1, 2021

How to power up your career and make you successful

How to power up your career and make you successful.

BE DiFFERENT YOU is about how to accelerate your career.

How to take your career to another level and achieve greater success in a world where the competition for a fast track route to success is fierce.
                       
My 35+ years as an entrepreneur and business leader taught me one simple truth: if you are not DiFFERENT and standout from the crowd, you won’t get noticed and you won’t be successful.

You will be ignored. You will be white noise. You will blend into the background.

You will fall short of what you expect of yourself.

It’s as simple as that.

This ebook will show you how to BE DiFFERENT than the crowd in easy, practical and proven ways and take your career to astronomical levels as a result.

You will learn the simple, practical things I did to make my mark in fast-paced, technology driven, intensely competitive business where many people coveted the same leadership positions.

Where personal rivalry was deep.

Where hand-to-hand combat for advancement was an everyday occurrence.

To survive and advance in my career, I could not rely on the standard textbook career prescription. I had to develop my own unique approach based on the practical dynamics of real world business.

Key concepts

Here a only a few topics in my daring book that you won’t find anywhere else:

— The personal ONLY Statement.
— Muzzle the Ego Beast.
— The Career Game Plan.
— Being on the side of the Angels.
— Learning Line of Sight Leadership.
— Target the Fox for advancement.

— Ask the magic question In times of career change.
— Don’t be like the next guy.
— Find a ‘done it’ mentor.
— You need to be a performer.
— Your personal brand must stand apart from the crowd.
— You need a killer résumé.

— You need to be different to win.
— ’Get dirty’ ways to advance.
— Divergent factions.
— Your knowledge isn’t enough.
— If you’re not relevant your dead.
— It’s ok to be contrarian.

Learn from my innovative career winning approaches and my personal experiences. They are DiFFERENT from what you are used to reading from academics and other ‘experts’.

They are proven. They worked for me and they’ll work for you!

Let me be your coach, guide and mentor.

You won’t regret it.

What some of my readers say...

“In ‘BE DiFFERENT YOU! Roy Osing offers practical advice and proven methods for any professional who wants to be noticed, gain champions and effectively progress their career.”— Josh Blair, EVP Human Resources & Chief Corporate Officer, TELUS Corporation, Vancouver

“Employees are always asking: what does it take to be a future leader – your book tells them if they want to listen.  You gave many real life examples that make the read enjoyable but also real for the reader. Thank you so much for taking the time and passing on your learnings to others who are currently in the same situation or will be soon.  The path and vision you paved for others to see is insight they would not normally get unless they were being mentored or are living it.”— Shane Sabatino Senior VP, Human Resources, The Brick Group, Edmonton Canada

If you want to accelerate your career you have to find a way to stand out not fit in.

Read on and find out how to do it.

BE DiFFERENT YOU! is available at the following retailers.

Cheers,
Roy
For all of my books, check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.1.21 at 09:00 am by Roy Osing
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January 1, 2021

How a business plan can be implemented for outstanding results

How a business plan can be implemented for outstanding results.

It’s getting tougher to develop a winning formula in today’s business world.

Competition is fierce.

Customers are demanding, fickle and unpredictable and employees are looking for insightful and caring leadership.

In response, extreme energy in most organizations is spent on trying to develop the perfect business plan that, due to its superb strategic essence, is viewed by all as a slam dunk to succeed. 

Unfortunately, the plan, regardless of how pristine or intellectually clever it is, does not guarantee a win. It may look good on paper, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Results are not achieved on paper. Results are achieved out there in the trenches where stuff is delivered to people; competitors do battle.

Winning is messy, inelegant and, yes, painful.

Winning is achieved by people doing things, not thinking things and not talking about things.

Winning is a function of brilliant execution, not what’s on paper. Yes, you need a roadmap to guide you, but that’s all it is - a guide.

A different perspective on planning is needed. Get the business plan just about right and put in the time to perfect execution.

Mind-blowing execution separates the winners from the mediocre ones.

Execution is the real competitive advantage; action not words.

Execute First; Plan Second offers a proven roadmap to establish execution as a core competency of any organization.

Discover my Strategic Game Plan; a playbook to create an effective business plan based on the gut issues facing an organization and the essentials to execute it.

This eBook draws on my 33+ years as an entrepreneur and executive leader. You will learn what i did to build execution into the DNA of organizations I successfully led.

The practices in this book are simple, practical and more important, proven. They work in the real world!

Key concepts

Here are only a few sound-bites from my book:

— Create your business plan - Strategic Game Plan (SGP) - in 3 days or less and execute on the 4th.
— The SGP is an execution plan with a strategic purpose.
— A growth target is a declaration of intent and is based on “I don’t know”.
— Beware of ’Yummy Incoming’.
— Tread lightly with ‘The irresistible Hook’.
— Special promotions and deals to attract new customers encourage 1-Night Stands.

— The ONLY Statement beats being #1, better or best.
— Craft your ‘Promise to Serve’ to DAZZLE your customers and create amazing experiences for them.
— The more tries you make, the more successful you become.
— Don’t use boilerplates for anything. They suck.
— The true source of innovation.
— Direct line of sight makes executing awesome.

— Overkill aids the execution process.
— Take care of your frontline If you want amazing execution.
— You need a Strategy Hawk to stay on your strategic course.
— You can’t execute well if you have CRAP In your way all around you.
— Imperfection feeds brilliant execution.
— To execute well you must plan on the run.

If you are excited about truly making a difference in your organization, study Execute First; Plan Second and venture where few have gone before.

What my Readers say…

“It’s a razor-sharp, focussed advice on building strategy in times when we don’t have full information. All questions that need to be asked are given.
No other book on strategy can condense all you need to do in 28 pages. It’s a masterclass for those fighting for time. Thanks for sharing it.” — Nerio Vakil, President Total Business Solutions, Mumbai, India

“I like the reference to financial targets and annual budget as well as creating separate growth plans for each WHO segment—combines,execution, strategy and metrics—all needed to reach goals. I also really liked the “Price Leader” concept—“lead prices up; follow prices down” (great strategy)”.— Bart Zych, MBA, The Strategy Doctor

“For today’s business Leader, ‘action’ trumps a beautiful 30 page business plan that never gets implemented. Roy’s formula for Strategic Game Planning is based on one simple concept:  Execution…. What you can implement NOW. This ebook is like his business philosophy… short and to the point; a quick read. Make your Plan composed of three very basic steps and EXECUTE on it.” — Michael Nott, Branch Principle, DWM Securities

“In his latest book BE DiFFERENT or be dead: EXECUTE First; Plan Second, Roy not only explains why execution trumps the Plan, he teaches the reader the fundamentals of HOW to flawlessly execute strategy.This book is an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to blow away their Plan and realize amazing results.” — Sandy Chernoff, Owner, Soft Skills for Success

Check out Execute First; Plan second at retailers here.

Cheers,
Roy
For all of my books, check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.1.21 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing
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December 14, 2020

Why special marketing deals for new customers are dishonest

Source: Unsplash

Special marketing deals for new customers is dishonest. Period.

I think one of the travesties of today’s marketing is the special promotion designed to bait or attract new customers. I believe it’s a dishonest marketing tactic which works against customer loyalty.

Most companies use special offers or promotions to bait or attract new customers with the belief they will kick sales up a notch and increase revenue.

For the most part, special deals use price as the hook and are time based to encourage people to make a fast purchase decision.

“For the next three months subscribe to our wireless service and get a free LED TV” is a common promotion offered by many as a way to acquire new wireless customers.

These offers are dangled in the face of a potential NEW customer; THEY receive the free TV.

On the other hand, someone who has been a loyal wireless customer for 10 years gets NADA even though they have supported the company to the tune of thousands of dollars.

This is crazy.

There are two main issues I have with this bait marketing approach.

1. It’s lazy marketing

First, it’s lazy marketing. The easiest thing to do is to give stuff away with the mistaken belief that if you do, the recipient of the gift will somehow feel obligated to enter your loyalty tent and remain dutiful henceforth.

What a joke.

Despite the studies marketers trot out, people value what they pay for, and if they pay nothing to move from another supplier to you they laugh under their breath and wait for the next juvenile marketer who comes along and makes you a better offer. And when they find one, bye-bye.

2. It’s intellectually dishonest

Second, bait marketing is not only an insult to the loyal customers who have given themselves to your organization for years, it’s also intellectually dishonest.

Existing customers rarely qualify for the bait deal. The free TV is NEVER offered to the customer who has been loyal for 5 or 10 years!

They have steadfastly paid their bill on time every month. They have put up with the odd price increase and policy change but their loyalty has been resolute.

And they have rarely been offered a deal on anything. They may have been thanked for their loyalty with words or an annual free calendar, but certainly nothing as substantial as the person being baited.

And when they discover that a special promotion is being offered to new customers and ask for the same deal they are told “I’m sorry you don’t qualify for this promotion”.

How do they feel? Second rate? Third rate? Don’t rate?

Special offers should be placed at the feet of your loyal customers fIrst. Reward or retention marketing may not be as sexy as its bait cousin, but special deals should be extended to existing customers FIRST!

It’s an awesome way to thank people for their ongoing support and return the favour with a token of your appreciation. Think about it as re-investing (in them) some of the revenue they have generously given you over the years.

But companies rarely use promotions this way.

They’re afraid of losing money.

They actually believe that if they offer the new customer deal to an existing loyal customer they will lose money; they don’t want to take the revenue hit from current customers taking advantage of the savings.
They don’t feel it is necessary to offer the promotion it to loyal customers to encourage them to stay. And if an exiting customer takes the deal they don’t believe it stimulates new sales.

These are bogus arguments for a number of reasons:

Offering something special to your loyal fans will surprise and delight them

They will stay loyal to you as long as you serve them well. And they will act as your best advertisers by telling the story to others about how great you are. Revenue will grow as a result.
Ever done a Net Present Value calculation on a customer who has been with you for 10 years? Is it a big number or small number. Right!

If you don’t include them they will find out

They will know that they are not included in the deal and they will be angry and feel neglected. They might leave you, but for sure they will talk you up to their friends and family as a selfish organization that does not care about their loyal customers. They will slander your brand; shouting out your lack of integrity and honesty.

If your special deal attracts someone because of their thirst for your low price, what makes you think they won’t leave you for a better offer?

A special targeted at ‘switchers’ is also fuel for more switching. Then you have realized zero return on your promotion investment and you have given your current customers reason to leave.

Investing in your loyal customer base always makes sense

You’re not reducing your margins by offering them the special deal, you’re reinvesting some of your margins in them to maintain their loyalty. Why do companies buy back their own shares?

(Read the fine print. This offer is for ‘new subscribers only’. As a customer for many years, this reduces their brand value in my eyes…)

It’s time organizations re-think the strategy behind ‘the special deal’ which is unethical and dishonest.

Any way you cut it, the deal strategy for new customer acquisition is risky.

Smart marketers go for the sure thing in the long run.

Show customers why they should stay with you.

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

• Posted 12.14.20 at 06:30 am by Roy Osing
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